


Forward Momentum

by MxFicklestubborn (Kasey_B)



Series: Making Travel [2]
Category: The Teahouse
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Aro Sacha, Aromantic Character, Assassins, Did i mention Sacha is aro?, M/M, Rating May Change, Sacha is Aromantic, The Phoenix Assassin Guild, in general
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-18
Updated: 2016-04-10
Packaged: 2018-04-05 01:46:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4160937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kasey_B/pseuds/MxFicklestubborn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single bad decision. Sacha and Gilder make several. </p><p>Featuring installments from Sacha's Journal with original art by @futureprism.tumblr.com!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. From the Ashes

**Author's Note:**

> Additional notes as of June 2017- I didn't know that tovarisch was "comrade" in the Soviet sense, and so I've changed the title to avoid affiliating this fantasy story with a real-world communist regime.

The bookshop smelled like aged paper; out of the back room, its owners ran a multinational assassin organization. It was called Tuffy's Literary Emporium. The interior was small and dusty. Displays in the windows rotated maybe once every few months, and the employees rotated just as often. Over the course of a year, an average of thirty-five deaths were ordered and carried out by its affiliates.  
  
Half a year had passed since Gilder set foot in the store himself, but the place still felt comfortably familiar, despite his lingering hangover, and the fact that they appeared to have rearranged it somewhat. There were new channels and pathways between the shelves, and it took him much longer than it should have to get to the clerk’s desk. He approached only somewhat steadily; Gilder wasn’t inebriated anymore, but he had been for the past couple of weeks straight, and the alcohol was taking its slow, unpleasant time to wear off. The clerk didn’t recognize him, but she seemed to understand the gist of what he was there for based from his general appearance. After all, not just everyone wore a broadsword into a bookshop, or at least that’s what he assumed.

“Would you like a recommendation?” She asked carefully, emphasizing the word in a manner that told him she must be new around here. She was a dark-eyed girl with hospitable curves, and Gilder instinctively gave her the best charming smile he could manage before replying, even as his headache spiked. “Not at th’ moment; I got some business with the management, actually,” he informed her in as clear a tone as possible, leaning heavily on the counter.

“Oh! Of course.” Nodding at once, the clerk hopped off of her stool and made a beguiling motion with her fingers, inviting him to follow her. He knew the way around to the back room by heart- they never changed that path, but he let her lead him anyways because he appreciated watching her hips swish as she walked. She was pretty, for certain, and yet he was still a little too numb to do much besides look at her and respect that fact. When they’d threaded far enough through the maze of books to reach the door to the back room, Gilder nodded to her in gratitude. “You’re sweet; I hope they keep you. Last counter boy was a froufy asshat, didn’t care much for him.” Unsure what to make of the comment, she simply bowed her head good-naturedly with a murmured, “thank you,” and hustled off, returning to her place behind the desk. Gilder watched her retreat again tiredly before he turned and knocked on the door. That was a rule: Always knock, even though he didn’t have to wait for a reply. They just wanted to know he was coming.

The door creaked open to reveal a dimly lit room stacked high with more books than Gilder could count, no organization system immediately apparent to him, although given the efficiency with which the place was run, he assumed there had to be one. The center feature was a small, rectangular table, covered in stacks of papers. It was surrounded by several mismatched lamps, one nearly as tall as Gilder. Another held a secret reputation of having belonged to a long-dead king, the execution of whom the Phoenix Guild was almost definitely responsible for, although no one could say for certain. There were three occupied chairs; upon Gilder’s entrance, three bodies turned towards the door. As he crossed the threshold, the largest of the company promptly stood, forcing his chair back with a scrape, and crossed the space in one stride.

“Gilder,” he barked, and embraced the younger man with a brief, crushing strength. Gilder hugged him back, feeling sinew and muscle. He thumped him between the shoulderblades with apologetic affection. “Sorry to have left it so long, Round,” he muttered before pulling away.

“We thought you were dead. Put you down as missing in action after the first month, per protocol,” the burly man replied, looking down reproachfully on Gilder, as only he could do. Twelve years ago, Abraxas Round had swept Gilder from the streets and vouched him into the brotherhood. The man had rescued him, and by all rights Gilder considered him to be his own blood. Round was the only person who held any real sway over him, or at least he had been, until a certain foreigner came along. He stood a full two inches above Gilder, who was a large man in his own right but could never quite come close to eclipsing his mentor. The elder man had thinning black hair pulled tightly back in a plait which added severity to a rough-hewn face that did not need it. Gilder shifted uneasily and found that he was not quite as steady on his feet as he’d hoped to be by now. Noticing this, Round’s scowl deepened. “I can smell hootch on you, too. You’ve been drowning in the pubs again, eh? What’d I tell you? Moderation, Gilder. Thought I taught you that.”

“I went through a rough patch, but I’m tryn’a get past it,” Gilder explained, attempting not to slur, and coughed to clear his throat. “Thas’ why I’m here, actually.”

“You’re still with us, then?” A prim voice inquired from behind Round. It belonged to a portly, lavender-clad woman who went by Catherine Deglisse. She appeared harmless at first glance, but by the second all bets were off; Gilder had never liked her. He vaguely remembered that she used to be a social climber until some nasty incident with her husband, at which point she had entered the Phoenix Guild’s line of work. She always denied responsibility for his death, but everyone knew; that was a requirement, after all. To enter the Guild, you needed proof you had already killed, at least once. Then they taught you to do it quietly. Catherine remained seated, waving at Gilder in icy greeting. “If you are, prove it.”

“From the ashes we rise,” Gilder responded quickly, and thumped his chest with one fist over his heart, over his phoenix tattoo. “From the shadows we strike.” He drew the dirk at his hip and braced himself, placing the edge against his palm, holding it outward so that they could all see. Catherine was always a stickler for procedure, and he needed her on his side. As the steel bit into his callused skin, her tight mouth shaped itself into a tiny smile, and relief swallowed him for a moment. “From the blood of the fallen we draw our strength,” he finished, half breathless. The new cut stung, and he relished it.

Round’s face split into a forceful grin. “Blessed be that!” He bellowed, slapping Gilder on the shoulder. He’d become a man of the gods in his old age, something that Gilder had always found ironic given his track record, but he respected Round too much to mock him for it. The force of the blow made Gilder stagger, and Catherine tittered in approval.

“Ah, you know I’d never desert. I owe my life to this place.” Gilder steadied himself and rubbed at his temple discreetly; a particularly bothersome ache had settled there. Round grunted. “We’d have a pain in the arse replacing you, anyway. The new kids are too soft these days.”

“Hm, you know what they say; only the strong survive,” Catherine replied drily. “Some will adapt eventually, and those who don't will be no great loss. Now then; to what do we owe the pleasure of this visit?” All of them must have guessed already, because Sacha was generally the one who collected their target files and contracts; clearly, however, they wanted to hear him say it.

Gilder cleared his throat again, pinched the bridge of his nose to give the world a little more clarity. “Well, thing is... I got to bust my partner out of jail, and I was hopin’ to get a little help, maybe some backup, maybe some tools. We’ll take a contract as soon as he’s out to make up for it, but I need him first, that’s the deal.” He dipped his head, then surveyed the company hopefully. There was a stretch of silence.

The only person in the room who had yet to speak was a wizened crone of roughly sixty. Her body was thin and hunched in her hard wooden chair, but her eyes could pierce flesh. “How long,” she asked evenly, “has your partner been locked up?”

Swallowing, Gilder replied, “Four months, almost.”

The aged woman, known only as Missy, nodded slowly. “I see. You do realize that instead of staging such a large-scale operation as a breakout, we could simply post his bail?”

“... What?”

“His bail,” Missy repeated. “The courthouse will ask for a sum of money, which we will pay, and he will be released.”

Gilder stared at her dumbly, lips slightly parted. In four months the idea had never occurred to him.

“Oh fuck.” He lurched into excuses. “I mean, we’ve broken out together tons’a times, but this has never happened before! I just thought he’d-”

“There’s no need to repay us for it, either,” Missy was saying, waving a decisive hand. Gilder quickly closed his mouth as she went on. “He’s one of ours, and we are a family that takes care of each other. Who're we springing? Edorovka, wasn’t it?” She snorted with apparent nostalgia. “Now there was a real piece of work; I liked that kid.”

“He’s twenty-five,” Gilder corrected her. Then he remembered that November was four months ago and corrected himself: “No, twenty-six.”  
  
“A kid,” Missy decided firmly, “and too young to be wasting time in prison. Not when he’s still useful.” She nudged Round, who had regained his seat, in the ribs with one sharp elbow. “Speaking of which, that’s something you can make yourself, you old keg. I need a money order slip.” Turning to Gilder, she shot, “Your partner, what’s he in for?”  
  
“Uh, he took some heat for me, so I stayed away from the case, mostly.” That was an understatement, and it probably showed, but Missy didn’t seem to be thrown by it. After a moment of swampy consideration, Gilder offered, “I think it was theft, maybe assault tacked on if I recall right.”  
  
“Deadly weapon?” Missy fired back, and Gilder shook his head slowly. “Not unless he counts as one.”  
  
“Probably should, but that’s beside the point. Makes it cheaper for us anyways. Put down ten thou,” she instructed Round, who had donned a pair of comically small glasses and bent over a tiny paper slip with a pen. Ever since a heart condition put him out of Gilder’s current line of work, he had stuck to bookkeeping; luckily it seemed to be a calling. Gilder was currently more concerned with the amount of money he was filling in, however, rather than the skill with which he was doing so. “That’s a hell of a lot. I don’t wanna trouble the Guild-” He began, holding up his hands. It was very important to be humble, or they might retract the offer.  
  
Catherine hushed him. “Absolutely not, you take it, now. And keep what you might have left over; you two have brought in loads more than that these past three years alone, you’ll make it back.”  
  
It was a thinly veiled way of saying they were going to skim Gilder for it outright, but about that he didn’t care. “Uh, thanks, then.” He shifted his weight uneasily, his muscles suffering from a combination of malnutrition and lack of use. “Really, thank you. I don’t know what else…”  
  
Having finished the money order, Round stood and pressed it into Gilder’s hand. With a thick arm around his shoulders, his old mentor pulled him purposefully aside, sat him down on a stack of books in a secluded corner a little ways off from the main table. “You’re a mess,” Round informed him unnecessarily. It was true. Gilder’s coat was hiding stained and thoroughly unwashed underclothes; the coat itself wasn’t in brilliant shape either, and he probably looked as if he’d just come out of a street fight. His hair was at the level of nasty where he’d simply tied it back, to avoid dunking it into tankards. Perhaps he had a black eye, but in the past few days he hadn’t bothered to check. The only pristine thing about him was his broadsword. He’d taken to polishing it lately on the colder and lonelier nights. A poorly timed booze belch surfaced and he stifled it ungracefully, avoiding Round’s eyes. “Fair enough,” he agreed in a dull voice, and studied a crack in the hardwood.  
  
The following silence was pointedly inquisitive. After a moment Gilder surrendered. “See, I went through a rough split-up a little while back.”  
  
“Ahh. Ain’t that just the way.” Round heaved a sympathetic sigh and squeezed his protegé’s shoulders tightly. “Well, she ain’t worth you goin’ to shit like this, whoever she is. You gotta pull yourself together. Buck up.” He punched him on the arm in what was clearly supposed to be a cheering gesture.  
  
“I know, but it’s still rough,” Gilder mumbled, and very nearly went for his flask out of habit, just at the thought, the barest mention of discussing Linneus. He remembered his company, however, and lowered his hand surreptitiously. Another religious pulpit speech on the dangers of hitting the bottles too hard wouldn’t offer any improvement to his day or his mood. “It’s why I gotta get my partner out,” he confided suddenly, on a whim. “Sacha’s always been able to pull me outta the gutter… You know how he is. I sorta need it right now. Only it's my fault he's locked up in the first place, too, and that… It ain’t sitting well.” On cue, he hiccuped uncomfortably.  
  
Round did nothing but watch him with practiced eyes, and before Gilder’s sluggish mind could catch up he was telling him everything. He explained the way that Linneus had been living, under the thumb of his lifetime abuser, and how Gilder couldn’t bear to let things stay that way. Round did nothing much beyond raise an eyebrow when they came across the topic of Linneus’ sex; they’d had this discussion before. His mentor would never completely approve, but he respected Gilder’s choices, and Gilder appreciated him for listening at all. He recounted the plan, how he’d talked Sacha into reluctantly agreeing to sneak Linneus away out the servant’s entrance while Gilder exited from the front so that it looked just like a regular appointment. It had of course backfired; tired of waiting, Sacha decided to enter the Teahouse himself and speed the process along, which somehow resulted in his arrest. Gilder had not been there; the goal was to remove Linneus safely, and he had done so, although at great cost to his partner.  
  
“I’m not proud,” he sighed, dragging one hand down his face. “This was never s’posed to be Sacha’s problem, just mine. I asked him for too much, an’ he gave it. Now it’s my fault he’s been locked up so long too… Shit, Round, he missed his birthday.”  
  
“Well, you’re gonna go get him out, with that magic ticket right there,” Round reminded him, tapping the money order clamped between Gilder’s fingers. “After that… Hang on. I think I got just the thing for you.” Quickly, he disappeared among the book stacks, retreating into the shadows with surprising speed for someone of his stature. While he waited, Gilder watched Missy and Catherine murmur together. They had gone back to work, shuffling papers, attempting to be efficient yet gentle on fingers slowly succumbing to age.  
  
Round was not absent long. He emerged silently and suddenly from around a corner, carrying a tattered-looking copy of a text with a worn title that Gilder couldn't read in this light. "Here you are." He gave a reassuring nod and placed the book in Gilder's hands, explaining, "It's a job out of the country. You're in a rut; you need to get on the move. I think this'll be good for you. The file's got everything you'll need, all in here." Round patted the book jacket affectionately with one hand, resting the other on Gilder’s shoulder. Now that he could read it, Gilder saw that the title was Crime and Punishment. How appropriate, he thought drily.  
  
"Is that the Naszamatka job?" Catherine called from the table, glancing up from some bloodstained report.  
  
"Indeed it is," Round replied, and Catherine nodded briskly in approval. He turned back to Gilder. "We've sent a couple people out already, but there's been no news. That job’s got your name all over it."  
  
Gilder blinked, flipping the book open. "D'you say Naszamatka? That's ice country, that’s where Sacha's from."  
  
Round nodded again sagely. "Exactly." He tapped his forefinger to his nose and winked at Gilder, who was still squinting at the file encased in the jacket. "You can take it or return it, obviously, but at least read the file over. I think it'll do ya good."  
  
"Right. Al'right. Thanks," Gilder coughed into his fist and then, in what was perhaps not the smoothest move, clapped Round on the shoulder with the same hand. "Thank you. I'll go pick Sacha up, we'll think about it. He'll prob'ly... Be glad t'get outta here too."  
  
"Doubtless," murmured Catherine, impassive, neglecting to glance up. "Take care, dear."  
  
"Yes, take care," echoed Missy, flicking her sunken eyes up at him sharply, and he dipped his head in her direction. "I'm in your debt."  
  
"Get out," she ordered with an affectionate twist of her dry mouth. Gilder complied with haste.  
  
Round followed him. “You make sure you bring that check to the right place, now,” he said quietly, once the door was shut.  
  
“Yeah, yeah,” Gilder assured him, feeling half guilty and half annoyed. “I’m not gonna cash it on hootch.”  
  
“That wasn’t what I was saying, kid.”  
  
“Come again?”  
  
“I can’t say as I’m educated on the subject myself, but a whore as pretty as your old honey… Ten thou sounds like about the bill, doesn’t it?”  
  
Now completely offended, Gilder crossed his arms and squared off. “Maybe. I never looked into it myself either, on account of how I don’t exactly want to _own_ him.”  
  
“Right, right, I get it.” Round took a step backwards, extending his hands in a placating gesture. “Just making sure you weren’t getting ideas.”  
  
Gilder snorted. “You have no idea what kind of ideas I’m prone to getting, Abraxas.”  
  
“I know you get ideas about your partner,” Round shot at him, raising an eyebrow, “and I know he ain’t quite as inclined to bumping elbows as someone who’s paid for it.”  
  
“The fuck do you know about Sacha?” Scoffed Gilder, turning away. “Step off, old man. Go pray to your goddamn rocks.”  
  
“I’ll pray for you,” said his mentor resolutely. Gilder stalked off, head pounding. The bell tinkled with great finality when he left the shop.  
  
  
On the street, he didn't know where to turn. He tucked Crime and Punishment inside the lining pocket of his jacket to keep it safe and clean. Generally that's where he put his spending money, but that had dwindled down to the current contents of his flask, and so the pocket was empty. He was planning to try and pick up more cash this evening hauling boxes in for some smuggler- But, Gilder reminded himself, thanks to the small paper ensconced safely in his jacket, that was no longer a necessity. He placed his hand on his breast and felt the outline of the book through the leather of the coat. He knew he should go to rescue Sacha. It was early; the sun was high. Which way was the courthouse? People passed him on the walkway and shot odd looks in his direction, but Gilder ignored them. The courthouse was a few blocks over, he remembered; he set off to the left. Slipping his fingers into another pocket, he played with the lid of his flask.  
  
Gilder began to take more purposeful strides. His partner had never done well with crowds, confinement, or lack of control, and jail time provided all three of those things in spades. Sacha must be losing his mind. The thought brought a familiar stab of guilt to his belly, because the whole situation was technically Gilder’s fault; he was the one who had convinced Sacha to help him break Linneus out of the Teahouse in the first place, and who had taken off when things went south, leaving Sacha to fend on his own. And now thanks to Gilder’s spells of drunken, wary, or lustful inaction, it had been four months since Sacha had seen the streets.  
  
Crime and Punishment. Gilder himself, his whole life was a crime and a punishment, simultaneously, encompassingly. He remembered his first kill barely at all, just flashes on occasion; a bleak and frozen night, the staircase behind the orphanage where he had grown up. Someone trying to break in. Someone failing to break in because Gilder got there first. Someone trying to thrust a shard of broken glass through his forehead. Someone’s last gurgle of blood-choked breath on his neck. Round had discovered him trying helplessly to dispose of the body and things had been drastically different since then.  
  
Sacha’s first kill, on the other hand… Gilder still recalled it as if it had only just taken place, as if he were still crouching in a dank alley with the breathless seventeen-year-old child his partner used to be. Round hadn’t condemned gambling as an impure practice yet, and so Gilder was betting on a street fight, himself only nineteen and trying to prove he was an adult by doing something so painfully adolescent it almost hurt him to think about it. The match was between a thick-necked orphan from Gilder’s old home and this skinny little scrap of a thing who was shivering with terror on the sidelines. Gilder bet against him. It was the first and the last time he would ever do so. Ten minutes later the kid had an elbow against the orphan’s neck and was whaling at his face with a left hook, screaming himself raw. They had to drag him off; by then he looked truly crazed, mismatched eyes wide and both blackened, blood around the corners of his mouth from where he had sunk his teeth into his opponent’s arm. The orphan wasn’t moving. Everyone started to crowd around the body, not realizing that was what it was yet, but a few people were figuring it out pretty quick.  
  
That was when Gilder took him, right when the kid was starting to understand what he’d done. _My name is Sacha_ , he had insisted in the alley. They’d been calling him Mouse, thinking Sacha was a word in the language he spoke, thinking he had no name. _They said they would feed me if I won_ , he explained, crouching into the same fighting stance he had used in the match even as he tried to reason, preparing to take any measure. _I refuse to starve in this shithole_ , he said. He wouldn’t apologize.  
  
In his younger years Gilder had learned pidgin _Matkajezyçk_ , the language of the North, from looking after some refugee children his orphanage managed to sweep off of the streets. These were toddlers on up from families who had put their country’s civil war at their backs, and not stopped running until the border was a fever dream across the Ivoirian canal. This pale boy in the alley looked no different to Gilder. _I’m going to get you out of here_ , he had told the kid, and no one had ever looked at him with that much relief before.  
  
Gilder had rescued him once.  
  
Decisively, he drew the flask out, flipped it open, and took a warm swallow. He couldn’t shoulder the blame for everything that had happened at the Teahouse, he reminded himself. Technically, the heist had only taken a sour turn due to Sacha’s own impatience. Hell, if things weren’t moving fast enough he could have just left instead of trying to take matters into his own hands. Anything Sacha did to land himself jail time was his own fault; he had to know that better than anyone. Surely he just wanted to be freed. Gilder imagined Sacha would be thrilled to be out, thrilled to see him. Might even be so overcome as to kiss him.  
  
The process of locating the courthouse, waiting to be called, filing for bail, and receiving his papers took altogether far longer than Gilder was lead to believe. By the time he got out, it was nearly sunset and his flask was empty. He left with a new money order for a much smaller amount, a pounding headache, and a sheath of papers legalizing the release of one Ward of the King #10642. They weren’t still holding Sacha at the courthouse after four months, and so Gilder had written directions resolutely on the inside of his forearm to the penitentiary. Thankfully it was not more than an hour’s walk from the center of town. He supposed he was lucky this was an island country, and it wasn’t further.  
  
His forehead was starting to feel like it had a branding iron pressed against it, and before he tried to find the penitentiary, Gilder decided to remedy that if at all possible. He needed a tankard, and something to eat, which he hadn’t had since morning. He made another left turn off the courthouse block and found himself in front of a pub which he frequented often. One of the serving girls there was quietly sweet on him; she could slip Gilder some hot bread and the like for a promise of credit and maybe a kiss or two. The thought of slipping her something in return crossed his mind briefly, but it didn’t excite him. He felt awful, on the whole, and he didn’t truly have anything to give.  
  
There had been nowhere to sleep for a week at least; Gilder had nothing except the clothes on his back, an order that couldn’t be cashed until the treasury was in business tomorrow, and he felt sicker the more he drank. He needed Sacha, needed to get him tonight, or he’d blow the rest of the bail money pubcrawling, to the point of taking the phrase literally. He entered the inn, aware that he had been standing in front of the doors for a few beats too long. His serving girl- Her name was Sylvie- waved her fingers at him, and he was reminded of the sweet new clerk down at the shop. He went up to the counter and ordered a pint. When it came, he downed it in three gulps.  
  
As the warmth of the drink spread through him, Gilder pushed away thoughts of slender hands and rose-tinted hairs that he still found occasionally on his clothes. He wondered if Sacha would smile when Gilder came for him; he had a painful smile, on the rare occasions that it appeared, and it gave the immediate impression that someone was standing on his foot. The idea made Gilder grin briefly into his second pint. He would leave right after this, as soon as Sylvie came with a hot loaf hidden under her apron. As soon as he was satisfied.  
  
Just as soon as he finished his drink.


	2. SACHA'S JOURNAL #1: IN MEMORIAM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sacha journals to eat up his jailtime.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FUCKBUCKETS. I keep waiting for myself to finish the whole story, but if I'm honest, I have no idea if that's ever going to happen. For now, if anybody wants to read this exquisite corpse, here it is.

14 of ~~Febuary~~ February

Mouse would have three year today.

Sacha read many book during cell time. One book say Mouse should have been with Sacha five more years past this one at least. By all ways of speaking there years have been stolen.

Sacha can do NOTHING.

There is feel of cold on the back of Sacha’s neck that does not go away. A heaviness in the stomach like too much spoiled food. An urge that settle in fist to make it want to strike. All symptoms of sickness. All feeling of absence. Of loss. Sacha bring many death but they are all for reason and not like this one. Mouse is small and not able to do harm. Is no good to kill a thing that could not understand what that mean.  
  


Have many good day with Mouse. Always good when Sacha wake and find Mouse on face or around neck like tiny scarf and cannot make to start day because Mouse is too sweet to be moving. Late many time but only by small increment and Sacha not begrudge. Mouse like to chew on Sacha’s ring when Sacha write in journal. Is for stealing practice. Sometimes also Mouse sleep on journal when time for Sacha write. Every time Mouse always drop purse right into Sacha’s hand and nose against Sacha’s fingers like affection.  
  
  
But wh  
  
  
  
Not unders  
  
  
  
There is no  
  
  
  
Remember these things make Sacha feel mostly sadness. No more time like these. No more time outside even. Sometime Sacha wake up and still feel Mouse draped over hip or shoulder or neck and think for one second that nothing change. Then put hand on place to feel softness and there is nothing and Sacha remember. They tell Sacha this not unusual. Sort of depression. Remembering not worth much now when all walls are same bare grey that look nothing like Mouse fur but make Sacha think of it anyways. Only hurt Sacha like a small knife. Would be best to leave but no chance of that any time soon with Gilder being treacherous whore-servant and all. Sacha have not much energy to have anger even at that useless wretch.

Mouse always stay in Sacha’s thoughts. Is important to keep him there. Is important to keep him somewhere. Is important to understand how to lose. Sacha never lose before. But lately Sacha learning many things. what is one more?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank y'all so much for checking this out. I wrote it like a year ago, but I decided, you know what, there's no point in hiding my shame. I spent a lot of damn time on it, and I'm putting it out in the world, by god.


	3. Washed Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the jailhouse to the bathouse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooh, boy. From here on out this hasn't been edited since mid-2015.

 

The doors gave a familiar, protestant creak as Gilder pushed them open. This certainly wasn’t his first time in the penitentiary. It was, however, the first time he’d ever seen the reception area, which was actually quite a clean and inviting space, despite the dismal grey walls that seemed to extend to the rest of the building. He had to wait thirty minutes after showing the papers, and he did it squeezed into one of the wicker chairs in the corner, tippling occasionally from what was left of his last pint; he’d poured it messily into his flask for the road. Very abruptly, the desk guard clanged some sort of bell. There was a grinding noise as the doors to the facility pulled lethargically apart. 

The foreigner crossed the threshold as if he were walking up the aisle to his coronation. He wore a bloodstained tunic, scuffed boots, and an aura of disdain so palpable that the air of the room seemed to thicken with it. He looked more brittle than before, and somehow older. Gilder lurched to his feet, nearly lifting the chair along with his ass; he stumbled. Sacha exhaled pure contempt. 

"Unbelievable,” he sneered. “Look who they finally yanked out of his whore to come fetch Sacha. Surprise you are even standing.” 

“I- The guild posted your-” Began Gilder, though he was cut off.

“Yes, obviously, I am not stupid.” Striding up to him, Sacha gave Gilder a once-over. “You are fucking drunk,” he spat. 

“I prefer th' term socially lubricated,” corrected Gilder uneasily. This reception was not what he’d expected.

Taking him firmly by the arm, Sacha dragged him towards the exit. “Fuck you.  _ Fuck _ you, come on. Let’s get out of this shithole.” 

The desk guard watched impassively as they left; Gilder stared at his lifeless, papery face until the doors shut and they were on the walkway. This part of town was mostly decrepit and deserted, the largest building having been converted subsequently into the penitentiary. They both tripped over some rubble in the road before Sacha halted and turned to face him again, expectant. 

“God,” Gilder laughed, oddly nervous. “Am I glad to see you.” 

One eyebrow arched slow and incredulous, Sacha crossed his arms. “Wish that Sacha could say the same,” he replied coldly. “Been long time, and whose fault is that?” 

“Well, mine,” admitted Gilder, then paused. “You’re talkin’ different.” He’d noticed something seemed off almost at once, but hadn’t been able to pinpoint it until now. His partner waved a lazy hand. 

“Sacha learn to talk pretty in the penny,” he said, dropping his voice briefly one dull, mocking octave. “But given that, perhaps Sacha ought to be thanking Gilder. Would never have time to read up on things if never stuck in there, never improve Sacha’s…Diction.” 

“What?” Gilder squinted at him and Sacha bared his teeth triumphantly. 

“Is  _ fancy _ word for vocabulary, for word choice. Sacha read up lots and lots. So perhaps he is thanking. Gilder is reason he end up prisoned at all.” His voice had turned poisonous, and on instinct, Gilder patted his belt surreptitiously, to check if all of his knives were where they should be, and not down Sacha’s boot. It had happened before. 

“Hold on, that ain’t fair,” he started warningly. “Anything you did to land yourself time isn’t on  _ my _ head, it’s on yours.” 

“Oh, really.” Pinching the fabric between two disgusted fingers, Sacha pulled at one of the aged bloodstains on his tunic, showing it to Gilder. “Look at this. Gilder know whose blood? Sacha explain. Is blood from wet puddle of shit they call the pimp at Gilder old favorite whorehouse.” 

“Atros?” Linneus has spoken about him often, and from what Gilder knew, Sacha’s description of him was accurate; his overall shittiness was most of the reason they’d decided to break the courtesan out in the first place. But Gilder was still confused. “I heard you tried to assault-” 

“Sacha not try to assault. Sacha try to kill. They frisk at office door, so he have only fists, but give a good show anyways.” Proudly, he gestured to the blood on his clothes. “He get what he deserve.” 

Gilder pinched the bridge of his nose. “Is that why you went up there? Because I told you he was an abusive fucknut an' you thought he earned a knife in the gut? Sacha, I know you go batshit over guys like that, an’ I understand, but we talked about this. I just needed you t'do  _ one  _ thing.” 

“Oh, get off your tall horse!” 

“It’s actually not-” 

“ _ Shut the fuck up, I know what it is! _ ” He burst out in his native tongue, and Gilder held his hands up. 

“Okay, all right, fine! Shit, calm down.” 

“… Calm down?”  The foreigner asked, shakily. Gilder swallowed and shifted his weight. “That’s. What I said.” 

Without warning Sacha surged forward and slammed both closed fists into Gilder’s midriff. Staggering backward into a wall, already unsteady from the four and a half pints he’d drained at the pub, Gilder coughed and put an arm out to block any incoming strikes. Sacha kicked him in the shin, then went for his ribs again. “Fuck, what’s  _ wrong  _ with you?!” Gilder demanded, catching his arm and twisting it back more roughly than he’d intended. Sacha shrieked and stamped on his boot repeatedly, trying to jerk himself out of Gilder's grip, although at the rate he was going he was more likely to dislocate his own shoulder first. Gilder hissed at him, “Shut up! Shut th’ fuck  _ up _ , we’re right outside the fucking penny! What d’you think you’re doing?!” Sacha did not appear to have heard. After a moment of brief consideration, Gilder let his arm go, only to snag him back by the waist and throw him over one shoulder like a travel sack. There was no more _ talking pretty _ , only a miasma of curses in the throaty Northern language Sacha was raised with, and a hail of little fists on his back. That actually didn’t feel too bad, sort of like a massage, but Gilder wasn’t about to say anything. They reached an alley up the block just as Sacha took an elbow to a joint of his spine, at which point Gilder swore in pain and dumped the smaller man on his feet unceremoniously. He could have been gentler, but he let Sacha stumble roughly into a wall, because he was frustrated. “Are you finished?” Gilder demanded.

“No,” snapped Sacha, and actually spat at him, lividly wiping his face. His cheeks were wet. “Gilder think Sacha go up to office because he lack common sense? No, just tired of waiting for lovebirds to finish their fuck! Sacha offer to buy contract on credit. Buy contract of Gilder precious doll-whore, understand?!” 

“Buy Linneus…? We discussed that, there’s no way we could have paid-” 

“Better plan than yours! Safer, too!”  Kicking angrily at some pebbles, he grit his teeth. “Sacha go up to  _ negotiate. _ And then that worthless slime, that boil on the ass of human race. The  _ pimp. _ ” He spat again; it was bloody, and Gilder realized that he must have bitten his tongue. “He say, not understand Sacha, he... He go to fetch someone who could...” Sacha paused and produced a quiet snuffling noise, sat down gingerly on some dislodged rock. “Sacha send Mouse into desk, just in case, something interesting. Whore-runner come back inside. He go to desk. He find Mouse with purse. The pimp try to grab him. He bring hand down too hard and snap his spine like toothpick.” 

“Oh fuck. Sacha, I.. Fuck.” Gilder took a helpless, wobbly step towards him. Sacha had loved that ferret with a weird, fierce devotion Gilder had never seen him express towards anything else. They hung there suspended in silence for a moment while they both tried to pretend Sacha wasn’t crying. “... That’s awful,” Gilder said after a moment.

“Yes,” muttered Sacha miserably, “not much else to say.” He paused. “Except.” 

Gilder, who had been staring down the alley dejectedly, looked over and found his partner leveling a glare at him that could cut through steel. “Was Gilder fault that Sacha up there in the first place. He go on Gilder behalf. And so whose fault is Mouse? Fault of filthy pimp, yes. But also, Gilder possess the blame. So, know this.” Purposefully, Sacha stood, his eyes never leaving Gilder’s, and took one step towards him. “Sacha  _ never _ forgive you.” 

Without another word he turned out of the alley and set off briskly up the street. 

 

“...Hey.” After several moments of motionless, blank staring, Gilder pitched forward, heading after him. “Wait, hold on, where’re you going?” Sacha marched silent in front of him, refusing to accommodate his partner’s drunken, tottering pace. “Hold up. I haven’t even- Sacha, come  _ on. _ ” 

Sacha held up one middle finger resolutely over his shoulder. Gilder snorted and rolled his eyes. “Real grown-up. Come on, you don’t even have a place to stay. You don’t even have any cash- Shit, neither do I.” Gilder patted down his breast pocket and remembered the money order, remembered the book that it was tucked into. “I got us a job,” he tried, “and some leftover cash from your bail... C’mon, Sacha, where are you gonna go?” 

It worked. Momentarily, Sacha slowed and then stopped, still without looking. “You think Sacha need you?” He asked softly, almost conversational. 

“I… No,” replied Gilder, and stopped as well to regain his balance. “No, I s’pose you don’t.” 

The smaller man pivoted slowly, regarded Gilder’s hand over his inside breast pocket with scrutiny. He passed over Gilder’s unshaven face. “But Gilder need Sacha,” he stated, as if it was unequivocal. “Need Sacha to keep him… Steady.” 

“Yes.” There was no use in saying anything else.

“Show the papers.” 

Gilder fumbled them out and placed the whole package into Sacha’s outstretched hand, book, file, check, waiver, everything. It was much smaller than Gilder’s own hand, and ostensibly more delicate, but the bundle seemed significantly lighter to Sacha than it ever felt to him.

Mismatched eyes flickered approvingly over the money order, skimmed the waiver, then settled on the assignment file tucked carefully inside the book. “This is home,” Sacha said, brushing the page with his fingertips. He narrowed his gaze up at Gilder. “They send Sacha home?” 

“They thought it was an appropriate assignment,” he explained with a careful shrug. “I haven’t read through it yet.” 

“No, of course not,” replied Sacha, matter-of-fact and distracted. He studied the file closer, muttering under his breath; they stood like that for several minutes, Sacha reading intently and Gilder standing dumbly by, waiting for some indication of how to act. They had stopped on a badly-lit bridge over a canal, and after a minute of watching his partner squint determinedly Gilder sat down against the railing and uncapped his flask. The dregs of his tankard were still there. Resignedly, he tipped it back, only to find Sacha squinting at him instead of the file when he’d swallowed. 

“What?” He raised an eyebrow. 

Sacha closed the file slowly. “Read this later. Er… Where is that teacup whore you used to have in your pocket? Is whole reason for this fiasco, correct?” 

Gilder stared at him despondently. 

“...Oh.” For a very brief moment, Sacha looked vaguely uncomfortable on Gilder’s behalf. Then he snorted and parked a disdainful fist on his hip. “Told you so.” 

“Aw, don’t start,” muttered Gilder, massaging his forehead. 

“But Sacha  _ did _ ! Said teacup whore not have anything to give back to Gilder except a decent lay! Assured Gilder, not worth trouble! Not worth money! But did you listen? Feh!” He made a motion like he was brushing off a fly. “Sacha tell you, he leave you after a month. How long did it last, hm?” 

“Three,” Gilder mumbled. 

“ _ See. _ Sacha always good advice about this sort of thing. Gilder just never listen. Maybe if you listen next time, there will be no…” He waved a hand irritatedly at the disgrace before him. “Disgusting… heartbreak.” 

Gilder sagged against the railing and swallowed hard again, staying silent. He traced the small cracks in the stone of the bridge with his eyes, followed them to where they led up to Sacha’s scuffed boots. “I… I’m really sorry about Mouse, you know,” he offered quietly. 

“...Mm. Sacha too.” 

“I was uh, hopin’ we wouldn’t fight.” 

Sacha heaved a sigh that seemed to settle over Gilder like a net, weighed down by every last ounce of patronizing chagrin that the tiny body in front of him could muster. “That is not good enough,” he muttered, crossing his arms, and Gilder felt a stone settle itself heavily in the pit of his abdomen. He hung there, suspended. Sacha was a statue. 

“Ugh. And yet is something.” Coming to life all at once with decision, Sacha stepped forward, took him by the sleeve and tugged impatiently. “Let’s go, then; you are getting depressing.” 

“Go where?” Asked Gilder fuzzily, although the relief sweeping through him was so strong that he couldn’t bring himself to care. He straightened shakily and let his partner guide him the rest of the way across the bridge. 

Eventually Sacha let go of his sleeve, confident in Gilder’s ability to follow him, and tucked the assorted papers into his own tunic for safekeeping. “We go to bathhouses. They should still be open, yes? Sacha make promise: First thing to do when busted out is take a proper fucking bath.” 

Snorting, Gilder pushed out a short laugh, not quite certain where it came from but glad of it nonetheless. The goal did not surprise him; come hell or high water, when they were working together Sacha had always found a way to drag him into the Capitol bathhouses once every week or so. The northerner himself made a point of bathing every day if possible. Gilder had never quite understood the fixation, but had accepted it as part of coexisting with Sacha as he had many other odd rules and demands, such as removing his boots in their living space, or burning trash and papers instead of putting them out with the garbage. 

Gilder had actually missed him. The nearly overwhelming sense of regained stability now that he wasn't the one holding the money might have been a big part of that, but he had to chalk some of it up to sentiment as well. He'd dragged Sacha away from a street fight gone wrong back when he was only an alien of seventeen, vouched him personally into the Phoenix Guild, and they hadn't seen too many days without some glimpse of each other since. Gilder didn't have many other familiar faces, so he supposed it would only make sense for him to feel the absence. As far as he knew, Sacha didn't have  _ any _ , but... They were very different people. That went without statement. 

 

By the time they reached the bathhouses of the city proper, the street lamps were lit. This meant that the baths would not be crowded, however, and so Gilder counted it among the positive aspects of the evening. It wasn't until they approached the entrance that Gilder remembered that it cost money to enter, but Sacha drew a small coin pouch out of his boot without missing a beat and deposited its contents in the orderly's hands. Luckily the blood on his tunic blended in the twilight, so after trading their shoes for towels they were waved through with little fanfare. Unsteady as he was, it took Gilder a moment longer to shuck his boots off, and he nearly tripped on the tile catching up to Sacha. "Wait, where'd you get that cash?" He hissed, hunching down so that the shorter man could hear him. 

"Sacha kept in old coat for emergencies. Had to throw coat to the furnace after release- too much dried blood to be any use. But extra coin hide well, still there," the smaller assassin explained quietly; it echoed something fierce in the baths, which was both a blessing and a curse at times. Abruptly, as if it had only just occurred to him, Sacha elbowed Gilder in the ribs. 

"Ow, what th' fuck?" 

"You owe Sacha a new coat," he said imperiously, and then strode ahead of Gilder down the tiled hall, turning into the first chamber they came upon, which happened to be empty. It was dense with humidity in the baths themselves, and Gilder pulled off his scarf, unbuckled his broadsword in order to shrug off his coat as he looked around, already sweating. There were far too many pillars and mosaics for the design of this place to really be considered practical in Gilder's opinion, he mused, as Sacha started to strip without any further delay. It was the Baths of the Capitol, however; even the royal family patroned the place on occasion, and so perhaps it was sort of required to be outrageously ornate. There were plenty of things in Ivoire like that. Gilder had long ago conceded to it as a cultural trait. His eyes fell on a very unabashedly nude statue in one of the decorative alcoves, and he snorted to himself. A cultural trait, to be sure, and one of many. Gilder never been to another country with half the number of whorehouses that Ivoire could boast to. In Gilder's periphery, Sacha removed his breeches. 

Gilder was wryly admiring a serpentine mosaic on the ceiling and trying not to let the steam cloud his head more than it already had when Sacha snapped him out of his reverie. "Oi." Gilder turned to find him standing near the edge of the bathing chamber, holding the papers out expectantly. "Take these while Sacha clean. Keep safe, yes?" 

Gilder had fully expected Sacha to demand why he hadn't stripped himself yet, and had half-prepared a retort by the time he actually registered what his partner had said. "Huh?" He tried instead, rather stupidly. "Oh, yeah. I've got 'em." Moving over to the pool's edge, he reached out to take the package. 

Expertly, Sacha sidestepped him, then delivered what Gilder would firmly insist in later recounts to be the entirety of his body weight to the larger man's thigh. "Fuck," Gilder exclaimed, in more general shock than indignation, and then toppled over into the water fully clothed. It was very warm, just short of painfully so, and deep enough that when he spluttered and righted himself it came up to his shoulders. " _ Damn _ it, Sacha, what the hell're you tryin' to do?" He bellowed after spouting water in what he assumed was his partner's general direction. 

"Clean you up, like should have been done a month ago," rang the familiar accent from somewhere behind him. "Gilder smell like a cow carcass that some drunk has set afire and then try to piss out the flames." 

"That's... Really specific, thanks." Gilder huffed and flung his hair back from his eyes. "Shit, though, ya could've just said something." 

"Clothes needed a wash too," Sacha pointed out, circling around to set the papers down safely with his own pile of garments and towels a ways away from the bath, then approaching the lip of the chamber again. "Also, Sacha still little bit angry with you." Delicately, he slid his tiny frame into the pool. He had lost weight and gained a speckled bruise on his shoulder that Gilder couldn't begin to speculate the cause of. Under the water his Phoenix tattoo seemed oddly blurred. It came up past his head, and he had to grip the rim to stay above. 

"Great, well, you're just lucky I gave you the files before you fuckin' pulled that shit," Gilder muttered, unbuckling the sheath and hauling his dueling sword out onto the edge of the pool. The shortswords, for double-handed wielding, came next from his belt, followed quickly by the garment itself and his collection of daggers. Shrugging out of his shirt, Gilder slapped it up over the rim, and then wriggled off his underclothes and squelched them on top of the pile. He was still wearing his bootstrap knife and the one in his chest sheath; after brief consideration, he stripped and deposited them on the tile as well.

Meanwhile, Sacha was snickering at him. "What?" He grumbled, feeling unpleasantly sobered by the water even as it soothed him. 

“Gilder always planning to give Sacha the files. It was bait," his partner explained. “Do not know why you even try pretend otherwise.” Then he submerged. Gilder stood and watched the surface of the bath grow still again before he reappeared. 

They divvied up the soap and washed across the pool from each other. It was a solid distance, at least nine feet, since Sacha didn't seem to want to even be contaminated with the ring of dirt water that had formed around Gilder, some ink mixed in from the directions written on his arm. He decided it was fair enough; he really  _ hadn't _ thought to bathe much after Linneus left. It didn’t seem to be a part of his life anymore. In some ways the arrangement was very familiar; Sacha directed Gilder where to wash like he always used to during their bathhouse excursions, not deigning to actually touch him but wanting to be certain that Gilder's cleanliness was up to par nevertheless. By his curt instruction Gilder scrubbed behind his ears, under his armpits, in lower regions that had been given an unusual lack of attention lately, and in between his toes. It wasn't until he'd soaped and dunked his head three times, scraped underneath his fingernails, and rinsed the hair on his chest, however, that he was pronounced fit to emerge, wrinkled and sopping, from the chamber. Sacha stayed in at least twenty more minutes, keeping to his side of the pool, washing his hair over and over until he ran out of soap. After that he sunk to the bottom for a stretch that very nearly worried Gilder before, reluctantly, breaking surface again and dragging himself out of the water. 

Sacha’s hair had grown long and unkempt in prison, something Gilder noted while they both sat apart wringing out their clothes, now respectably scoured although the bloodstains on the tunic and breeches would never fully be removed. It had pasted itself over his eyes, and he kept swatting at it so often that at first Gilder thought there might be some sort of bug in the vicinity.

“Hey,” the taller man murmured, and let the echo carry it over. “Your hair, d’you uh… Want me to cut it? It’ll be easier while it’s wet.” He’d done it plenty of times, just like Sacha had kept up his shave for him; that was part of belonging to the family of the Guild. Members cut each others’ hair as a general rule; who else could they trust behind them with a sharp implement? Under normal circumstances Gilder would barely need to ask, but weird things set Sacha off, and he was already skittish about being touched without warning. 

In response he received flat incredulity in Sacha’s native language, a wheezy laugh. “You have to be kidding. Sacha let you take a knife to the back of head? You  _ left _ , understand? You  _ left. _ ” 

Gilder’s hands found his empty flask inside his damp coat. He gripped it briefly, ran his forefinger along the edge of the cap. “I know,” he muttered. “M’sorry.” In his defense it hadn’t exactly been a life or death situation, and Sacha could have made plenty of choices to fast talk his way out of there instead of trying to throttle the business proprietor, but something told him that wasn’t exactly what his partner wanted to hear at the moment. “I shoulda made sure you were out okay before we took off,” Gilder tried instead. “Or come in to get you or something. I just thought you could handle yourself alone, way better than Linneus-” 

“You wanted to keep a hand on your whore’s ass, Sacha understand,” he spat, surprisingly acidic for how composed he’d seemed a moment ago. “After all, whole operation so easy, so smooth! Gilder go in. Gilder pull out! Done it a thousand times before.” This was accompanied by an exceedingly lewd hand gesture that, all things told, wasn’t necessary to illustrate the double entendre Sacha was clearly aiming for. 

Gilder rolled his eyes. “Look, I shouldn’ta said anything, but for the love of- Sacha, I thought you’d be back at th’ flat by the time we got there. And Linneus ain’t been outside the place by himself since he was a toddler, I wanted to-”

“Awh, protective instincts get the better of Gilder,” Sacha simpered in a genuinely disgusting voice. “Sacha  _ know _ what you really wanted to do.” 

“Fuck’s fucking sake, I loved him, okay?!" His voice rang across the pillared ceilings and Sacha made a shushing noise, elbowed him hard in the bicep before tugging on his damp breeches. "What-ever that is worth," he muttered imperiously. Gilder scoffed at him. “I'm sorry you got jealous, but  _ that  _ ain't my fault." 

Sacha choked, doubled over with the force of a shrill, humorless laugh; he trembled with his face between his knees like he was wracked with sickness; Gilder cringed with what the screechy echo was doing to his head. “Jealous?! Jealous of whore?” He gasped out some foreign expletive and struck his own narrow thigh with a damp slap. “You give yourself too much credit. Whore get in way of business, and Sacha have problem. Not care until then.” Suddenly over his fit, he straightened up, slithered the tunic back on. He brushed his hair out of his face again and looked down at Gilder, still kneeling on towels. “Sacha not speaking from spite. Loving your whore is truly worthless. What did he have to offer you? Not protection, not money, not company because he fake it all when you pay; all it could ever have been is Gilder give everything and get nothing in return.”

Gilder shook his head, then slowly tugged on his own shirt while Sacha appraised him. “... That’s why you’re so mad at me? Because I chose to protect Linneus even though he could never repay me for it in the same way? Do you understand what loving someone means, Sacha?” 

“No.” The response was curt and immediate. 

“Well, then… I can’t really explain anything to you.” 

Sacha blinked. The sound of dripping water reached them through the humid air. Resolutely, Gilder unknotted his headband and started to wring the water from it, ignoring the eyes on him. Finally, a murmur:  “... As long as it never happens again.” 

Looking up, the larger man arched one eyebrow. “What?” 

“As long as this _ never happens again _ ,” Sacha repeated, crossing his arms. “You want to take job with Sacha again? Sacha need to know that Gilder never leave. Never choose love over Sacha. Or else there is no trust, and everything else fall away.” 

Gilder stared. “Are you asking me never to fall in love again?” 

The foreigner shook his head firmly. “No; Sacha asking for Gilder to never dishonor this partnership. Whatever it takes. We had an  _ agreement _ . You broke it. Never again.”  

The words hung like the thick steam around them; it was impossible to be completely dry in the bathhouses. The dampness was inescapable. Gilder took a deep breath of warm, humid air, which made him cough, but he felt more sober afterwards. 

“... You’re right,” he muttered, and then louder, “ You’re right. I’m sorry.” It bounced off each wall in the chamber until neither of them could escape it, either. 

After a moment, Sacha’s hands slid down to rest on his hips. He nodded once at Gilder, curtly. “Good.” The movement shook his hair back into his face and he gave a weary sigh, gesturing at the still-sodden headscarf in Gilder’s hands. “Cut off a length?” 

“Huh? Oh, for you. Sure.” Taking out his boot knife, he hand-measured part of the fabric and made a slice, which came out blessedly even. Gilder offered it out to Sacha in wordless peace. 

His partner took it, wrung it ruthlessly, then pushed his hair back behind his ears before tying the strip of cloth to keep it in place. Following brief consideration, he shifted the knot to the side of his head, the way that Gilder usually wore his, and then adjusted the ends into a respectable bow. Gilder tried to stay passive, but in the end his bad judgement won out and he snorted. “You look like a twelve-year-old girl.” 

Sacha sneered. “Don’t push it, asshole.” 

“You’re getting pretty good at cussing me out, huh.” 

“Prison is very good education opportunity. Never mind, is getting late, time to find place to stay. Have to be cheap, Sacha spend most of emergency funds on this place.” He scanned Gilder up and down appraisingly. “Still worth it.” 

“Uh-huh, whatever.” Gilder smiled to himself as he finished dressing. Everything had felt so off-kilter for months- and although at first it had been refreshing living with Linneus, making drastic changes in his lifestyle was a challenge for such a creature of habit as Gilder, and one that had yet to yield any positive results. Being around Sacha felt familiar, and while he hadn’t exactly missed the structure, an assurance that they were moving in a solid direction towards a visible goal was definitely comforting. He donned his coat and scarf and buckled his broadsword back in place. Luckily they remained dry; the outside air still had a bite to it. 

As they headed back towards the attendants' area, Gilder noticed Sacha cradling a bundle of papers that had definitely not been part of what he had given him back on the bridge.  _ Crime and Punishment _ and all of its valuable content was tucked securely under his partner's belt again, but this collection was separate and even colorful. "Hey. What're those?" 

"Is Sacha's journal."

Gilder blinked in surprise. “You still write?”  He remembered that battered old notebook filled with funny, childish illustrations and broken English; he’d spilled whisky on it last month and then spent a whole hour leafing through the sodden pages as the ink ran. It was unsalvageable after that. 

“Sure. Only way to pass time in the penny is with letters,” Sacha replied, holding the crumpled parcel against his chest like a child holds its weaning blanket. “Maybe teach you to do it better. Gilder signature could use some improvement, Sacha see from bail order.” 

“Uh-huh.” Chuckling, Gilder padded over to deposit their towels, the tile cold on his bare feet this close to the doors. Sacha had their shoes back by the time he’d finished. They took turns holding onto each other’s elbows to tug their boots on and headed out. 

Something had occurred to Gilder after remembering the old, whisky-ruined journal, but he waited until they were on the street before bringing it up. He put an arm out to halt Sacha. “Hang on. Most of your stuff got lost, but there’s something I kept, now that I think about it.” Pulling his coat aside, Gilder removed a small, ornate dagger from his belt. “This is yours. I think I found it under your uh, your pillow, so it seemed important?” 

Sacha gave him a very odd look and chewed on his lower lip briefly. “Err… Well, Gilder give Sacha that one. Is sort of a joint… Knife. You can keep.” 

“No, no, it’s yours. Take it, you need at least one for now,” Gilder insisted. “C’mon, before anyone passes us.” 

“Ugh.” Abruptly, Sacha gave an irritated jerk of his head, then bent down and drew one of Gilder’s shorter dirks from his boot. “Here, we trade,” he muttered, thrusting it out handle-first and staring intently at a crack in the pavement. 

Gilder started to laugh.”Take both,” he said, and kept laughing. Sacha took them. Together they set off down the street. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you.


	4. SACHA'S JOURNAL #2: LIST OF TRAVEL NEED

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A packing list.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please enjoy!

 

29 of February 

 

Sacha has been liberate! Gilder prove himself not entirely useless- We now have money and job to complete and Sacha suppose this is thanks to Gilder. He stumble around like sad drunken troll all the time though so still much improvement necessary. Very sad about lose pink teacup whore. Sacha think this is idiotic but considerate enough not to say out loud. Mostly just make sure he wash and not make himself sick on strong drink because we are partner. 

 

New job will require much travel. Sacha and Gilder go to mother country to silence politic figure. Gilder cover basics (money & knifes) when he come to bail Sacha out but also miss lots of important supplies. Bail money have much left over, but Sacha careful to budget. Run out of money back home is much worse than in Ivorie Evoire  Ivoire. 

 

µ3'000- Ticket money, travel expense, room and board.

 

µ500- Travel food (dry pork, fruits). In case travel is rough. Buy at market on Saints Day when freshest. 

 

µ300- New clothes (warmer). Sacha need coat (Gilder  owe ). Remember bring more than three pair underwear apiece. 

 

µ50- Good maps. 

 

µ400- New crossbow. 

 

µ100- Nails,  new journal and pens, extra blankets in case hotel sheet have disease or bugs. 

 

µ40- Pocket watch. 

 

µ70- **_S O A P_**

 

µ2 00- Quality pipeweed. 

 

Anything else left go toward saving in case of we are ending up in tight spot. We will be  prepare for this trip. Sacha make sure. 

 

Not much time to write lately with errands and get ready for travel. Sacha go to book shop tomorrow, confirm plan with head quarters- also prove that Gilder not blow cash on whoring. Sacha honest surprise that he did not. Because tea whore leave him Gilder very dull and sad lately and Sacha not caring for this attitude much. Hope that he pull together soon because otherwise going to be terrible company, especial for making travel. Right now for sure Gilder company is shit, complete downer.  Plus, we will probably have to sell large sword for pocket money even with bail check and certain this will not improve matters. Sacha not say anything to him yet. Perhaps he get so angry he forget about being sad. Sacha do this all the time. 

 

Come to think- Gilder basic fucking useless when all mope and sulk around so sad and hardly caring about anything Sacha say. Is not offensive to Sacha, just  annoyance . This job is important. Is  very important for many reason. Cannot afford to slip up, neither of us two.

 

Sacha wonder if Gilder going to be any use at all on this trip.

 

Remains to be seen. 

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Biggest question is, where does he get the crayons?


	5. Loyalty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally, the journey begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, we venture out of revised territory and into.... DRAFT COUNTRY. dun dun dunnnn

 

The strap of Gilder's knapsack tugged heavily against his shoulder, driving a deep ache into the muscles that he knew he would feel tomorrow. A similar weight had settled in his stomach, and had refused to budge since this morning; food had been out of the question, although considering what he was about to do, that probably wasn't such a terrible decision. He glanced around at the crowd on the boarding platform, swallowed nervously, and asked, "Uh, Sacha? D'you think we could get there some other way?" 

"...Are you serious?" His partner, who had already boarded the train, dropped his own bag with a thump and leaned out of the narrow doorway to stare at him incredulously. "Quit fucking around. We need to find compartment." 

"No- Sacha, I really don't wanna do this." Trains were fucking enormous up close. Gilder had seen them plenty of times from a distance; of course he had, he’d traveled to Verone, Aufdaske, Sestina, and plenty of other nearby countries on various jobs. However, he’d never actually ridden one before. Part of that was because it was a very public form of travel, and luckily since Ivoire and its neighboring countries were reasonably small in terms of land mass, it had never been an issue in the past. Apparently, however, Naszamatka was a gigantic block of ice with more train tracks than horse-paths. There was no getting around it if they wanted to have any chance on this job, but every time the spout at the front belched smoke Gilder felt his gut tighten further in protest. He had the misfortune of being raised by an Ivorian nurse, and had spent a great deal of his adolescence in the country as well, where combustion engineering was outlawed due to a devastating fire incident that killed their previous Queen. As a result, there was a buzz of fear and taboo around the topic perpetuated by most people Gilder associated with. He’d even been friends with two of the victims in that explosion, despite being too young to really remember much- Only that he had been breaking up a fight in the shelter playground when the news came. The argument had been between two younger children over a toy shovel, that Gilder knew, but he couldn't recall the names of the boys on the train. All he had was the fear, and it wasn’t going away anytime soon. 

“-really going to do this  _ now _ ?” Sacha was saying, tugging frustratedly at his hair- still far too long - and stepping back onto the platform with Gilder. “Please to be sucking it up,  _ buddy, _ or we not getting anywhere until next morning. Are you afraid?” 

“I’m not,” protested Gilder automatically. 

“Lying.” Sacha shook his head reproachfully. "Listen, is not going to just suddenly detonate. Trains are invent from Mother Country, have been building them for longer than Gildar alive.” He banged on the side of the compartment with one fist, then rolled his eyes when the clang made Gilder flinch. “ _ For fuck’s sake _ ,” he said in his native tongue- Gilder supposed it was the local one as well, now -and tugged impatiently at the strap of Gilder’s bag. “Give it. Hurry up.” 

Gilder passed it over reluctantly. “It’s heavy.” The warning was unhelpful, and his partner almost went down with the weight of the satchel. Somehow it made its way onto the train. Sacha brushed himself off superficially and stepped back out again. “O-kay. Come on, is same thing as horse-cart, only pulled by fire instead.” He motioned Gilder towards the little doorway.

Unconvinced, Gilder managed to shuffle a little bit closer, but he couldn’t reconcile the gap between platform and train. “This is fucked,” he muttered, shifting away. “I can’t do it, Sacha, c’mon.” 

Sacha’s idea of consolation was to call him a bitch and tug roughly on his sleeve, which wasn’t very effective, given that Gilder had about a hundred and twenty pounds on him easily. When that didn’t work, he gave a groan of frustration and actually took Gilder’s hand instead. "Here. Look at Sacha, eh? Just look. Train is safe and easy and much faster than any other travel, so you are trusting with one small step.” Holding his other hand out, the smaller assassin took a careful step backwards, towards the platform gap. “Come now.  _ Tovarishchi,  _ yes? Sacha not let any harm to us.” 

It was very rare that his partner displayed even grudging amounts of patience, and so Gilder complied mostly out of shock, taking the other hand and allowing himself to be lead forward. Sacha’s hands were slender, cold, and completely dwarfed by his own, and Gilder tried to think about that more than what the rest of his body was doing. “Good," Sacha repeated. "O-kay, now step. See?  _ Tovarishchi _ , what Sacha tell you? Is easy, is safe.” Gilder glanced down. He was on the train, technically. It was only the first step into the actual compartment, but now there was nowhere to go except forward, and he nearly flattened Sacha in an attempt to get further away from the gap. The train could start moving at any second, after all; he had seen it happen. “Ai, watch it,” his partner grumbled, to which Gilder half-mumbled an apology that he dismissed with a jerk of the head. Sacha hauled the door closed with an air of finality. 

"Hey, thanks. Um,  _ tovarishchi, _ " said Gilder once he had steadied, weighting the word carefully in his mouth. Sacha used it often, usually before they set out on a particularly risky job or took some other sort of gamble. Gilder had never heard it from anybody else, and he always assumed it had something to do with luck or balance, an assurance that things would turn out well. He waited in case he had misjudged, but the smile that broke onto Sacha's face was so painfully, surprisingly genuine that he needn't have worried. They stayed silent for a while after that, each content in the satisfaction of having pleased the other. 

Inside, the reality of their travel situation was easier to ignore. The car was like a tiny tenement building, with little doors which lead, upon closer inspection, to closet-size rooms that seemed rather nicer than half the places Gilder and Sacha slept regularly. They hefted their bags up the little stair and down the tight hallway until they reached a compartment marked with the number 7 and several letters Gilder couldn't recognize, which nonetheless matched the symbols on their tickets. Those had been acquired with expertly forged border papers, which the ticket officers at every station they’d passed through examined tightly. Initially it had worried Gilder, because it could mean trouble if they got held up trying to make a quick getaway, but when he expressed as such to his partner Sacha waved it off. “Is very easy to get out of this country,” he insisted. “Sacha do it once already, even when having only fifteen years and not much brains.” 

Looking around the cabin, however, Gilder silently begged to differ his opinion on that particular subject. Everything about the place was airtight, and while cozy, pointedly confining. There were no windows, only a lightbulb, and the bunks didn't jut out from the wall so much as curve into them like a the beginnings of a cocoon. A small table with a lip folded out in front of a seat fixed to the opposite wall. The whole thing was arranged so that the occupant was effectively trapped as soon as the surface folded down. A cabinet above the seat held towels and bedding inside, as well as a little card that, according to Sacha, promised a fresh pitcher of water to be delivered in the morning. A rack for their bags loomed above the entire setup like bars of a cage. Gilder felt too large for the room at first, although he could stand and move around the area perfectly well; the atmosphere was just cramped. There was a rabbit-trap mentality about the place that Gilder hoped didn’t apply throughout the rest of the country, though from what little he knew, he wasn’t holding his breath. 

The train's takeoff wasn't as bad as Gilder expected; a little jolt, some rumbling through the floor and a hoot that made him jump, but otherwise he could barely tell they were in motion. They had about five minutes trying to settle in the compartment before a conductor came around to punch their tickets. He was tall, dark-skinned, and wore his hair longer than Gilder’s. When Sacha spoke to him he seemed surprised, but the ticket check went over smoothly and there was no time to wonder about it. While the conductor was present the pair of them spoke the national  _ jezyck _ , but once he departed they switched back to the English of the Isles again. As a general rule between them Gilder had insisted they speak English together back when Sacha’s command of it was barely functional, and they had agreed not to change the arrangement. Gilder would get plenty of practice brushing up his rusty tongue with the locals, and it was far more discreet to communicate in a dialect hardly anyone else in the country could touch. 

“That was quick,” Gilder commented as the door clicked shut behind the conductor; the entire business had taken perhaps three minutes. “Oh, yes,” replied Sacha matter-of-factly. “We are in, now.” The idea put a lump in Gilder’s throat that he couldn’t swallow around.

The two of them set about clearing the towels and bedding from the wall cabinet and stuffing the more incriminating contents of their bags inside instead.  _ Crime and Punishment  _ went all the way at the back. "You sure you don't want to keep that on you?" Gilder asked when Sacha squeezed past him to tuck it away. "Yes," he replied firmly. "Is better in case Sacha need to get information from someone." 

"Why would carrying the file make any difference?" 

Sacha shrugged. "For collect information, might need to take clothes off." 

In response to Gilder's incredulous look, he rolled his eyes. "What? Gildar might think that bedding is his area of expertise, but Sacha speak  _ many _ languages." 

"Uh-huh." Pinching the bridge of his nose, Gilder rummaged in his coat for his flask, only to come up with it empty. He groaned quietly and sat down on the bottom bunk. Reflexively, he fingered his ear, looking for the hoop earring Linneus had gifted him as a token, which he'd sold earlier that week in order to buy their new maps. It was at Sacha's insistence, of course. He had agreed it was for the better at the moment, but lately he was feeling its absence as badly as that of it's original owner. 

They had sold his broadsword as well, which Gilder had been even more unhappy about. “It will be too conspicuous!” Sacha pressed him, until finally he relinquished it to the blacksmith Ash, whom he at least trusted to handle it well. That sword had been with him for years, and he felt almost as if he were relinquishing one old friend for in exchange for another; Sacha’s attitude towards him had been significantly less vengeful since the sale, and Gilder surmised it was probably penance for selling his crossbow for gin money. In all fairness, Sacha had not tried to replace his own weapon either, even though Gilder had seen it quite distinctly on his shopping list. Equality was an important thing for him. That didn’t make the absence of the sheath strap across Gilder’s back feel any less unnatural, though.

He pushed a tired hand through his hair and asked, "You said there was a compartment with food and stuff, right?" Sacha gave an affirmative grunt, currently preoccupied with trying to sling their actual bags up on the provided rack, which was significantly taller than him. Standing with a sigh, Gilder recovered them from the floor, lifted and pushed them easily into place. “I’m hungry,” he stated, turning back to Sacha, who looked affronted, but ultimately resigned. 

“Thirsty is what you are,” he muttered. “Very well. Sacha warn, though, Gildar not going to like the transfer.” 

“‘Scuse me?”  
“You will see.”

He was wrong. Ten minutes later, when they were standing on opposite sides of the compartment divide, with the grey landscape of Naszamatka whizzing past around and underneath them, Gilder couldn’t see much of anything, because he had his eyes closed. This time around, Sacha had lost what little tolerance he had mustered for his partner's phobia. “You go back inside and Sacha wreck you!” He shouted, leaning precariously over the railing to stretch a hand out when Gilder cracked an eyelid to peek. Just the glimpse made him queasy; he knew he was going to remember this for years in the future as one of his lowest moments, but the goddamn rickety car connector was terrifying him. He clung to the handholds around his compartment door, started to fumble with the latch to go back inside. 

“ _ No _ !” Sacha shrieked, his voice cracking over the wind. He sounded like he was reprimanding a dog. “Get over here! This Gildar idea!” 

“I’m not that FUCKING hungry,” Gilder bellowed back, wind-numbed fingers working limply at the latch. He fixed his vision intently on the task at hand, hugging closely to the wall and trying to ignore the blur of countryside in his periphery. 

“ _ Drunken coward troll _ !” His partner shrilled. “Go, then, Sacha hope you starve slow _ - _ ” He broke off with a small yelp; there was the slippery sound of skin screeching against metal.

Gilder never saw Sacha fall off the railing, precisely; he didn’t look. He only moved, lurching forward across the gap. His forearm connected with something that made a hollow crunch upon impact, and he banged his hip and elbow on the railing. Grasping wildly for a handhold, Gilder reeled for a few seconds of undiluted horror until by some miracle he found himself pressed against the door to the opposite car. 

Without further ado he tore the latch open, slammed the door outward, and ducked into the cabin, dragging Sacha with him by a fistful of his tunic. As he hauled the port closed against the wind, his heart was a battering ram against his ribcage. Sacha staggered backwards against the opposite wall, both hands clamped over his face; blood was oozing out between his fingers.  “Fuck,” Gilder gasped. "Aw, fuck, are you all right? I broke your nose, didn't I?" 

Sacha took his hands away from his face, and Gilder was stunned to see that he was smiling, dizzily and fiercely. "You did it," he grinned, baring his bloodstained teeth. "Sacha think you are too craven, going to let him fall, but you knock him back. Is good! Good job." He spat into his palm.

"What the fuck?" Gilder's mind reeled. "You slipped- You  _ pretended _ to slip on purpose?" 

"Need to know if Sacha can trust!" Sacha explained, exasperated, dabbing at his nose with the edge of his scarf. "Gildar must put partnership over fear, or else he no use anymore, and Sacha have to send him away- and Sacha not want to do this. But there is no worry now! This is symbol of loyalty," he concludes proudly, gesturing to his already bruising face. 

"It's a liability!" Gilder argued, trying to keep his voice down so as not to disturb other passengers more than they might have already. "People's gonna notice if you walk around with a shiner like the one you're working on, not to mention the nose. Hell, Sacha, what were you thinking?"

"Sacha thinking of larger picture," his partner replied stubbornly, still looking very pleased with himself. Rolling his eyes, Gilder took him by the shoulder and shoved him toward the compartment restroom. "That is  _ fucked up _ … Fine, get yourself clean. Now I  _ seriously _ need a drink." 

He waited outside for some measure of time, listening to the water run and the sickening crack that meant Sacha had set his nose. A man and his wife emerged from their bunker and made their way past him, and Gilder nodded at them awkwardly, still trying to settle his nerves. The smaller assassin emerged looking slightly better for wear, having rinsed his scarf of the blood as well as possible. There was nothing to be done about the bruising, but it wasn't too awful yet; the morning would see it much more pronounced, and they could deal with that when it came. 

Through the next three compartments, Sacha lead Gilder quietly by the arm. They had to pause after each transfer so that Gilder could get his bearings back, although he received significantly less shit than he expected for needing to do this. Dare he say it, but his partner was even patient, leaning beside him relaxedly and holding his wet, frozen scarf against the bruises on his face. "You sure you're really okay?" Gilder asked in the moments before they transferred to the actual dining car, and Sacha smiled at him for the third time that day. “Yes, yes, of course. Sacha has had much worse." 

It must be the country, Gilder decided, the sheer prospect of being home, that was the cause for all the smiles. Otherwise he'd never known Sacha to be so readily content before- at least when he wasn't stoned out of his mind. "All right," he sighed, and resolved to keep a close eye on him anyway, in case the blow to the face had somehow caused a concussion. He set his jaw. “Let’s go.” 

One short, brutal trip later and they were entering a much more spacious area than the tenement cars. Here there were windows, albeit small ones draped with pale curtains, and wooden tables flanked on either side with thinly padded chairs. Everything was fixed to the floor. This place was far more densely populated than any of the previous compartments as well, and the cabin walls swallowed a cacophony of the region's throaty dialect. Although the noise did not fluctuate their entrance attracted a few odd looks, which Gilder was used to because of his foreboding stature, but this time they weren’t directed at him. Sacha adopted a more regal posture as they crossed to one of the few empty tables, kept his eyes purposefully on the destination, and did not say a word.

There was something unusual, something that Gilder hadn't been able to put his finger on until they'd entered the crowded dining car where there were enough people around to validate his curiosities. Before traveling to Naszamatka, he had expected the populace to be primarily short and blindingly pale, like the countryman who was his travel companion. On the whole, however, everyone in the dining cart looked infinitely more similar to Gilder than they did to Sacha. The people of Naszamatka were large, burly, with dark skin, darker, lengthy hair and narrow, smiling eyes. Now that he thought hard on it, the kids who taught him their dialect had even looked the same as well. Gilder’s eyes flickered between their cabin fellows and his partner in confusion for several moments while Sacha perused the extremely short menu with great deliberation- and then as if to fully affirm his suspicions, a member of the wait staff appeared at the table and immediately began speaking to him, acting as if Sacha's chair happened to be conveniently empty. 

The smaller man took it in stride, speaking up with his eyes still pointedly on the menu. At first the attendant seemed befuddled, but soon she corrected herself graciously, disappearing off to wherever the food was prepared. Sacha appeared unruffled by the confusion. After brief thought, Gilder decided to store his questions for a more opportune moment; there were more pressing matters at hand, and he had a feeling the subject was likely a little sore.

"...What did you order?" he asked instead, scanning the menu himself with mild trepidation. Gilder couldn’t read  _ matkajezcyk _ ; it operated with an entirely different alphabet, and his instruction as an adolescent had only been conversational. His partner waved a dismissive hand. "Ai, is only one plate on here that Sacha trust ingredients anyway. You will like it." He folded his hands and leaned across the table towards Gilder. "We talk about plan now, anyway." 

"What?  _ Here? _ " Gilder leaned in as well, glancing around them and lowering his voice. “Did I really hit you that hard? There’s people everywhere!”   
“Exactly,” Sacha said firmly. “And if one single joker in this crowd happen to know even tiny bit of English, the place is deafening. Much easier for anyone to ear-drop if we talk in our quiet bunker than do it here.” 

“You mean eavesdrop,” Gilder muttered, and Sacha scowled. “You mean  _ shut up _ .” 

“Oh, get over it.” He mulled it over for a moment and couldn’t find a good argument against his partner’s logic, which mildly irritated him, but he pushed that aside. “I guess you’re right.” 

Sacha rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and performed an aloof shrug. “ _ What a surprise. _ Now. What Gildar remember from file? Has been days since you have read, for certain. We,” he gestured across the table between them, “must be on same page.” 

“Our target is a woman in her mid-thirties, a little bit taller than you, black of hair, dark of skin.” He could picture her name on the file, printed out in Round’s neat lettering: Alyona Lebezyatnikov, but he wouldn’t say it here. She was a political activist, widely controversial, and therefore the payoff for her elimination was extremely high. Gilder rattled off a few more details from Alyona’s file until Sacha seemed satisfied: she had an extremely dedicated revolutionary following, had military experience, and traveled constantly to make herself more difficult to track. Personally, Gilder was wary of the last tidbit; he knew better than anyone that when your life was on the line, you got pretty skilled at not being found. 

“Good, good,” Sacha nodded, smoothing his end of the tablecloth in satisfaction. As if he had read Gilder’s mind, he went on with, “And I know you worry about tracking this woman down, but Sacha send some letters, talk to some people before we leave off.” He offered not so much another smile as the fierce shape of a smile, a look that belied malice. “We have a contact.” 

Gilder blinked and sat up straighter; he was surprised. “You serious?” 

Leaning back in his own chair, Sacha tapped his bottom lip with the tip of one finger. “Lots of people eager to be rid of this woman, apparently. Still need for caution, of course, but informant seem like best way to locate target, one way or another.” 

“I thought she was on the move all the time,” Gilder pointed out. This plan of Sacha’s was sounding somewhat dubious, but given that the older man had limited knowledge at best of this country’s political climate, he had little choice but to put faith in his partner.  

Sacha nodded in approval at his interjection. “True. But she must meet up with militias and townfolk for rally and command, and so Sacha thinking there must be some people who know of her future destination. And so we get ahold of one, meet on this very train tomorrow when they board. Know it sound risky,” he conceded, flicking a glance up at Gilder’s furrowed brow, “but if they try to swindle us, they are on her side and know where she is for sure. Foolproof either way.” 

Considering this, Gilder hummed with skepticism. “I dunno if I would go that far. I can’t argue with you exactly, but there’s a lot of shit that could go wrong, Sach.” 

Sacha shrugged calmly. “There is always a lot of shit that could go wrong.” With that, he pushed himself up firmly in his seat, eyes fixed on a spot behind Gilder somewhere over his right shoulder. “Ah, and here is food!”

The plate that the attendant set down between them was full of something, all right, but if it was food, Gilder was finding it tough to tell. It smelled strongly of grease and something floral, composed of some lumpy purplish-red mash. Poured across a dent in the top of the pile there was a generous helping of some thick brown sauce with chunks of orange in it. "Thank you," he said to the attendant when she set a smaller plate directly in front of him, presumably to serve himself with. To Sacha he was about to demand what the fresh hell this shit was supposed to be, when the waitress placed a small corked bottle next to his plate that drew his attention from anything else. 

Drawing the cork from it easily, Gilder brought the bottle up to his nose and sniffed. It was strong, and made his head feel pleasantly fuzzy. "Did you order this?" He asked, glancing at Sacha in surprise, who was already relishing a full plate and a full mouth. 

"Yeh," he mumbled, then swallowed. "Is only for occasion, do not be having ideas." 

"Sure, sure," said Gilder quickly, then took a solid pull. It burned something fierce, which wasn't a sensation he expected to ever have again at his level of experience. He laughed through his coughing. "Shit, that's got a kick!" 

"Ai, not so quickly!" Sacha shook his head in reproach. "You will get sick. Eat first, at least." 

Still chuckling, Gilder took up his fork. “Thanks,  _ nanny _ . I think I’m seasoned enough to handle myself.” 

“Uh-huh.” With a skeptical flick of his wrist, Sacha returned to his speed consumption of… Whatever they were served. Gilder took an experimental forkful and was surprised to find that it didn’t taste nearly as odd as it looked; a lot like potatoes and beef stew. The bottle of spirits went down much smoother after a solid plateful as well, he was surprised to discover. It was so smooth that he couldn’t resist asking for another three to stash for later. The waitress gave him an odd look when he requested she slip them under the tablecloth, but complied quite competently, and Sacha was too focused on the home cooking to properly notice. Regardless, Gilder hadn’t felt this good in a long time; his chest felt warm and his body properly heavy at last, and sometimes his cracks even made Sacha laugh over the table, a sharp, derisive little thing, but a laugh nevertheless. He felt triumphant. The cross back to their boarding car was significantly easier, if still somewhat wobbly. If the wind was raking across his face, Gilder’s smile was too warm for him to feel it that night. 

 

For once they were both in high spirits when they returned to their cabin. Gilder was swaying and grinning and bursting with raunchy jokes that would occasionally spill out, making him heave with laughter at his own incredible wit. Sacha still hadn’t even looked twice at the bottle of hootch, but he seemed to be intoxicated with something else all the same; whenever the larger man tossed out a worthy jest he would snigger into the back of one hand while clutching the sleeve of Gilder’s coat with the other to steady himself. Perhaps that’s why he stayed so tight all of the time, Gilder mused; mirth actually imbalanced him. The thought made him melt into laughter again, no context available, just him slumping against the wall and shuddering with what was feeling continually more like relief in his own relaxation. His partner rolled his eyes, dragging him over to help with arranging the bedsheets. Then he  _ smiled  _ again and suddenly Gilder couldn’t stop looking. Sacha was actually quite lovely when he dropped that goddamn petulant scowl he carried all the time. He used to use something to darken his eyelashes, something that involved paste and brushes, but since jail he didn’t seem to be concerned with it anymore and now they were feathery-white and otherworldly. When he smiled he showed too many teeth, but it had a way of catching Gilder’s eye and not letting go. 

“God, why don’ you drink?” Gilder demanded loudly, swinging his arm and nearly striking the smaller assassin in the face again while he fumbled dressing their bunks with the sheets provided. 

“So that I do not accidentally kill people, you clod, _ ”  _ replied Sacha, slipping back into the native tongue momentarily and catching Gilder’s arm with unnatural good humor. The scarred man shook his finger in scolding. “English,  _ Cha-cha _ , don’t slip now,” he insisted blurrily, and Sacha kicked him in the ankle, though Gilder could have sworn he turned pink at the nickname. It was from their earliest years, before Sacha was adept enough at the language of Ivoire to demand to be taken seriously. Sometimes Gilder almost missed it. 

“Hey,” he said finally, when their beds were clumsily situated and the proper amount of clothes were removed. He was sprawled on the bottom bunker, unable to hoist himself up to the top one gracefully enough to guarantee he wouldn’t break anything. Sacha was leafing through  _ Crime and Punishment _ one more time before bed, a habit he’d picked up over the past week. “What,” he replied, not impatiently. 

“I’m real glad we ain’t fighting any more.” 

Blinking at him, his partner raised an eyebrow. “Sure,” he said after a moment, “is quieter.” Then he returned to his book. 

Gilder turned his head sluggishly to stare at the curved wooden bottom of the bunk above him. Slowly, he breathed in the tight air of the cabin, felt the buzz in his head. “I love you, you know,” he said. 

This time Sacha did not look up. “Good for you.” 

“I really do,” Gilder insisted. The room seemed like it was swaying, even though he was still. “I wish you loved me too, sometimes. I wish I loved people who could give it back to me.” His voice was starting to get thick; he could smell roses, even though it didn’t make sense. Roughly, he swiped at hand at his face, rubbed underneath his nose, but it didn’t help. Linneus was still there, just barely, just enough to stop Gilder from forgetting entirely. They’d been so close.

“I wish you did, too,” Sacha said quietly in the mother tongue, and Gilder turned back to him blearily, eyes leaking onto his tired, flat pillow. 

“... Why don’t you love me?” 

His partner gave a sigh that seemed far too deep for his tiny lungs to manage. "Sometimes," he said, "Sacha feel that he want to. But it is not possible. Sacha does not work this way." 

“I don’t understand,” Gilder mumbled. His pillow was growing wet. He felt well and truly drunk; nothing else.

"Sacha does not understand you either,” said the foreigner, almost gently- Except he wasn’t foreign at all, and Gilder didn’t understand how he could possibly have thought so for so many years. Sacha shut the book and returned it to the cubby, then crossed the cabin to the bunks; he stood and watched Gilder for a moment. Then, curiously, he leaned down and smoothed some hair out of his face, let his fingertips linger on the larger man’s skin. “We have appointment in the morning, so rest up,” he murmured. “Sacha is going to need you.” 

“Okay,” Gilder said numbly, wanting to put a hand on top of Sacha’s and keep it there on his forehead. He didn’t, though, because he knew Sacha was giving him everything he could. 

 

The morning was like needles in his retinas as soon as he rolled over. Gilder grumbled something that sounded like “ _ urghnf _ ” and buried his face in the crook of his right elbow. Sacha’s voice carried from somewhere across the cabin. “Oh, good, you are awake.” 

“Glad you fuckin’ think so,” Gilder grunted, pushing himself upright with one elbow before grinding the heels of his palms against his closed and stinging eyes. “Why’d you turn on the light? I think I’m dying.” 

“Better not be,” his partner said briskly, much closer than before, although Gilder did not hear him approach. A damp, cold cloth passed roughly across his scarred face, and he was reminded of how his old head matron used to scrub all the boys that she could get her hands on before couples came in for adoption meetings. “Make yourself presentable,” she used to say. “There is someone here I would like you to meet.” 

After a moment, Gilder realized that Sacha actually had spoken those exact words to him just now, very deliberately in English. Now he straightened up and switched to his mother tongue, passing the washrag to Gilder. “Get your underarms or something. You better put a shirt on. She is here earlier than I expected.” 

Swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, Gilder stifled a yawn. Sacha, already fully dressed, glared and snapped his fingers impatiently, prompting Gilder to start passing the cloth under his arms and across his chest. The chill helped to wake him more fully, though not very well. “I don’ understand,” he mumbled, still in English. “Who’s coming?” 

“I told you,” Sacha replied, “she is already here.” He rescued a shirt from the floor with his left foot, then stuffed it into Gilder’s arms. As he yanked it on haphazardly, Sacha turned to call over his shoulder towards the doorway. “You may enter now; he’s decent enough.” 

A tall, bulky and imposing figure slipped with surprising grace through their compartment door. Most of their figure was draped in thick layers of wooly winter clothing, and the face surfacing above the draped cloaks was brown, hard and worn, but Gilder ultimately decided she must be a woman because of the hair. It was braided down past her waist, without a single strand of dull grey or silver marring the blackness of its beauty. He’d seen several women on the train with intricate braidwork like this, but never with hair this incomparable. She observed him stonily, and he squinted back, eyes still trying to adjust to the harsh, unprotected light in the cabin. 

“Good morrow,” she said after a moment. 

“Pleasant morning to you,” he replied, then repeated it clumsily in  _ matkajezyçk _ . She nodded slowly, almost owlishly, and did not speak any further. 

“Well, as I am sure you have gathered, this is my partner, Gilder Ward,” Sacha injected after a moment, fumbling over his name for the thousandth time; it still came out sounding like  _ Geel-dar Wart.  _ “Gilder, this is our contact, Galina.” 

“That is true,” the woman echoed brusquely. Sacha shifted his weight uneasily beside Gilder. “We welcome you,” he said with somewhat hesitant decorum, and Galina bowed her head. “You honor me.” 

Gilder swallowed past the nausea of his steadily growing hangover. “I hope we do,” he said in murmured English. “I fuckin’ hope we do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All aboard the asshole train! TOOT TOOT 
> 
> oh god that, is an AWful joke actually that's, i'm sorry i didn't realize


	6. SACHA'S JOURNAL #3: SLIGHT MISHAP ON TRAIN

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frustrations have arisen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is way funnier than I remember it being when I first wrote it, dang.

 

5 of March

 

Surprise surprise! Sacha is right once again for think that this trip not be easy. Just only today Sacha get smack in the face. Not even to mention other horse shit we slog through just to get on this stupid loco motive. 

 

But Sacha not blame the train. All this Gilder fault straight up. 

 

Is not so bad the bruising itself. Sacha not so upset about that. Is very frustrate that we have to go so far to  test Gilder loyalty in first place!! We have been out of  ~~ Ivore  ~~ _ Ivoire _ three whole day and still he continue to  t ~~hink about nothing but~~ do nothing but  _ avoid _ think about stupid rosy teacup Linnyus. Sacha wish Gilder never even  look at that pointless doily of a whore. And Gilder say Sacha jealous! Sacha just  ANGRY.

 

Ugh. Gilder fall in love and make all this trouble for us. Make even more extra trouble just for himself as well! Sacha see him at dinner tonight sneaking little bottles into coat pocket. Sacha take them out while he is asleep- but still he is asleep because he drink so much already tonight. Gilder always drink a lot but never like this on a job. Always a little tip from the flask now and then but never  unprofessional . Is disgusting and Sacha worry a little bit that still might be better idea just to leave him behind- But then how are Sacha’s chances? No better. 

 

Besides, Gilder is the other half. We are partnered. Is not so easy to just 

 

He say just now that he love Sacha. Probably he is only sad and deluded, but 

 

Being honest, Sacha is selfish. So perhaps would not wholly object to this idea.  And Sacha like 

 

Sacha  like Gilder. He should stay around, anyways. But is downfall here, that Sacha like him, because some day Sacha have to tell him is not worth the effort. Is not worth loving Sacha because there can never be equal arrangement. Right now we have equal arrangement, we have partnership, but as soon as love enter the equation Gilder try to give something Sacha is not capable of return. 

 

Sacha never do this to Gilder. We are  partner .  A whole being only when together. We  must be equal if we are two part of same entity. 

 

Why does Gilder have so much trouble to understand? When Sacha care for Sacha, he care for Gilder also because it is the same thing.  We are the same. We are tovarischi. 

 

Until Gilder see this Sacha does not know what to do with him.

 

Right now he snore so loud it feel like whole cabin shake with it and Sacha is not feeling so pity for him and his problem of not understanding. So stupid that he does not understand! Gilder bed down with plenty of girl that he does not love! Sacha do it too- less frequent though- and is never all twisty and complicate like this! What make any of this different? Nothing. Gilder so stupid it hurt Sacha head to think about it some time. 

 

It is late and Sacha write in circles, waste up paper. Going to sleep now if possible with snorting buffoon underneath. 

 

Sacha try not to do this but

 

just for tonight

 

wish that Mouse was here. 

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks one more time to my girlfriend for these year-old illustrations. I've tried to space them out and also have them make sense for all the journals I had written, and I've just used the last of them. Love ya, honey.


	7. Ambush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The repercussions of some pretty bad decisions start to rear their heads all at once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right, this is actually a pretty special chapter to me, because at the time, it was the most I'd ever written of any one project- Four chapters, something like 50 pages, wowie! Also, I'm honestly pretty proud of these action scenes. Thanks for checking this out, y'all.

 

Galina seated herself on the bench across from their bunks at Sacha’s invitation, folding her arms and spreading her knees like a man. Her eyes were sunken and somewhat beady, so that Gilder could not quite tell where she was looking, and hell if he wasn’t trying. She was seated directly in front of their storage cubby, as though she knew that was where their knives were kept- Most of them, anyway. There was still a small blade that Gilder kept strapped to his right thigh, currently displayed for easy access and mild intimidation. He was certain Sacha had one too, although not where it was located. They wouldn’t be totally caught off guard if she tried anything, but still, she was large, and he was hungover and mildly nauseous.

For some reason, this woman deeply unsettled him, and he found himself almost angry at Sacha for allowing her into their compartment at all. He supposed he couldn’t be, however; the younger man was making such gritty conversation that Gilder could tell he wasn’t any more comfortable with this arrangement. His face had not undergone any swelling overnight, perhaps because he had kept ice on it, but there was a dark, furious bruise under his right eye that looked painful and tender. It was probably up to Gilder to move this along; Sacha wasn’t used to expressing anything except anger, and he’d get there pretty soon if this gargoyle of a woman didn’t quit staring at him from beneath her thick eyebrows and speaking barely at all.   
“Pleased to hear the travel wasn’t too bad,” he interjected at an opportune pause. “But speaking of travel… We’ve got business.” 

“Yes. We should do this quickly,” Galina murmured, looking oddly relieved, and reached beneath her outer cloak. Gilder tensed reflexively, and beside him he noticed Sacha do the same, but she drew out a parchment, not a weapon. Unrolling it partially to show them that it was a map, she said, “I have marked here all the destinations that I am aware of. There are three. I suggest you attempt the middle ground between yourself-” 

With a wail of straining brakes, the train shuddered to an abrupt and violent stop. Gilder clocked the back of his head on the top bunk and swore loudly. "The fuck was that?" He demanded in English, forgetting himself for a moment.

"Our next stop should not be for many hours," Galina pointed out, replacing the map back inside her cloak quickly and leaning forward. "This could be a complication." 

"Hold on, now," said Gilder, switching with haste back to the native tongue. "Maybe it's just maintenance." He held his hands up in pacification. This unforeseen hang-up had potential to drive the whole meeting south, but not if Gilder could help it. "Let's not get overexcited," he insisted. 

Beside him, Sacha brought his fist down against the wall of the cabin and pushed off towards the door. "I will go check." 

"Wait, Sacha, I'm sure it's-" Gilder tried, but his partner barely glance at him. "I will go  _ check,"  _ he insisted through clenched teeth. 

Gilder cringed as the compartment door slammed shut behind him. Left staring across the cramped room at Galina, he swallowed thickly and adjusted his body language, leaning toward her, hands clasped between his knees, in order to seem open and nonthreatening. It was a tactic the guild had trained him in years ago, but lately he'd become a bit rusty with it. At this juncture, however, he had no choice but to brush up. His whole paycheck could be resting on it. "Please continue," he invited Galina in a carefully tempered voice. "He will catch on fast when he gets back." 

She studied him suspiciously for a moment, but seemed to eventually decide that he was trustworthy, even if his accent was thick. "Here is the map," she stated, bringing it hesitantly out again. "You will do best to head to the midpoint between your current location and that of she whom you intend to... Encounter."

Nodding, Gilder indicated that she continue. His communication skills had risen significantly above pidgin levels since spending most of his time with Sacha, but his speech was still less than diplomatic and so he resolved to do so as little as possible until he knew he was not responsible for winning this woman over. "I have marked also the strongholds where her militias have been gathering force, places to avoid if at all possible." Galina paused again, as if expecting Gilder to offer some measure of approval. 

"Thank you," he tried, searching for something more eloquent to offer her, but he never got the chance. At that moment Sacha hurtled back into the compartment and straight into Galina, his knife out and against her throat before either of the compartment's occupants could react. Yanking her head back by her hair with the other hand, he braced a knee in her lap. "They are searching the cars. It's the militia!" He snarled, digging the flat of the blade against her jugular. "Is this a trap? Did you bring them?  _ Speak now or be silenced! _ " 

Slowly, Gilder slid his hand down his thigh, gripping the handle of his own knife and pulling it free in case she tried anything spontaneous. Galina did not appear apt to do so, however; she was tense, perhaps, but her arms hung loosely at her sides. She gazed stoically into Sacha's face, which was inches from her own. "This is not my doing," she rumbled with calm indifference that was more unnerving than any fear she could have possibly expressed. Gilder stood in slow motion, knife held low, but at the ready. 

"Then get up," Sacha hissed, shoving her out of the seat. When she actually moved away from the wall, Gilder knew she wasn't an immediate threat- There was no way his tiny partner could have applied enough strength to forcibly direct her anywhere. Even so, when he asked what the situation was, he did so in English. 

"They have gun and knife, move from car to car and pull one or two people, not sure for what. We go before they find us." Sacha was strapping on his belt as he spoke, steadily unloading their cubby stash. "Strip the beds." 

"Are we gonna need the fuckin' blankets?" Though he was bewildered, Gilder began to do so anyway, sheathing his knife again and pushing Galina out of the way. "Watch the door," he added to her, then demanded, "What're we gonna do, cross the goddamn tundra? I thought you said this place was huge, an' the trains were the only safe way to get anywhere." 

"Is true," Sacha ground out, stuffing Crime and Punishment into his knapsack haphazardly along with a lengthy, beat-up wooden box. "But we go, or they kill us here." 

Gilder jerked his head towards Galina. "Her too?" 

"No, just take map." 

Gilder passed the blankets off and started towards her. 

"Wait." Unbeknownst to them, Galina had unearthed a dirk half the length of her forearm from somewhere on her person, and was now holding it defensively across her broad chest. "I am prepared to do what I must to defend myself, likely at great cost to all of us… Or you could allow me to accompany in your departure, and we will part ways at a later and more mutually profitable date." 

The three of them were all but frozen, Galina with her feet planted apart, slightly crouched, ready to take the first blow. Gilder flicked his eyes over to Sacha, saw one hand twitch towards his belt, and threw his own hands up, trying to snare the woman’s attention. They couldn’t win this fight, not here, not now. “You’re with us,” he said, loudly and purposefully. “You’re with us. The more against this army, the better.” 

“Agreed,” she said shortly, and without further discussion lowered her sword and angled herself towards the door. “Gather your supplies.” 

“Good.” In one short stride, Gilder crossed the cabin and hefted his own travel sack, starting to shove blankets into it, grabbing a weapon or two of his own. Crouching next to Sacha, he whispered, “What the fuck? You really think we could take her  _ and  _ those assholes out there?” 

“We can take  _ anyone _ ,” Sacha insisted in a ragged voice that made Gilder look at him twice. Once again he wondered whether the blow to his partner’s head yesterday had done more lasting damage than it appeared, but he had no time to examine him now, and last night… Well. He’d been too fucking drunk. 

The pair finished packing just as they heard the entry of the whole car bust inwards, along with an incoherent string of shouting. Galina threw the compartment door open, bellowing, “ _ Forward _ !” Slinging his bulging knapsack over his shoulder, Gilder charged after her. 

Galina felled the lone soldier in the entryway with one swift blow to the head from the handle of her dirk. His rifle clattered to the floor, and instead of picking it up, she made as if to crush the barrel beneath her boot. Gilder bent and snatched it before she got the chance. There was a brief moment where they both regarded each other, sizing up the level of trust between them, then he gave a brisk nod, and she returned it. She moved to step out over the soldier’s body, but Sacha had wriggled out of the doorway behind Gilder and was already halfway down the hall, screaming, “Out the back! Other way!” Both of them set after him, heavy boots thudding against the wood of the floor. Gilder felt a wave of heavy gratitude that he’d decided to put them on after Galina sat down in their cabin; in all the excitement he may not have otherwise had time. 

They tumbled out the back door, nearly colliding with each other in their haste, and Gilder heard a shot ricochet off the frame as he ducked through. As soon as he was out he slammed it again, shoving the latch into place. “ _ Go _ ,” he roared, and then followed his comrades over the railing and into the unforgiving snowbank next to the tracks. There were guards posted along this side of the tracks, but they were sparsely stationed and mostly preoccupied with the two or three people they seemed to have pulled off of every car. At their emergence there were a few shouts, however, and Gilder didn’t spend much more time looking. He ran heavily, following Sacha, who had pulled drastically ahead of his larger counterparts. They were heading toward a patch of woods several yards off from the tracks, and although Gilder knew at this range, accuracy for striking a moving target was drastically decreased, he weaved his path purposefully. He had been shot once, and didn't fancy a repeat experience. Galina was somewhere to his left; Sacha was hitting deeper snow up ahead and losing his lead rapidly. Gilder saw him hitch his knapsack up over the back of his neck to protect from the bullets, saw the leather buckle with impact moments later. He sped up.

All three reached the trees together. They were towering behemoths, and the fallen snow was coated much thinner beneath their broad branches. They did not bother even to slow, crashing through sparse underbrush, entering deeper and deeper into the forest. Gilder was far past the point of being out of breath. His lungs burned with every thundering step; it had been too long since he had to run like this. The trees were getting so thick that several times he nearly ran straight into one, careening wildly to the side to avoid smashing his face against the suddenly looming trunk. The bark scraped his forearms through his coat. 

Finally, they staggered to a rest, collapsing against the nearest trunks and drawing deep, ragged breaths, hacking saliva off to the side onto the white-dusted forest floor. "Okay," Sacha wheezed from somewhere to Gilder's right, and then staggered over, throwing his bag down at his partner's feet. "Boost me." 

For a second Gilder had no idea what he was talking about; then he understood. "Right," he grunted, dropping his own bag as well and stooping down. He took Sacha around the knees and hoisted him up towards the nearest tree branch, just low enough for Gilder to touch on his own. Once his partner had a solid grip, he pushed him upward, helping him clamber onto the branch. "Good," Sacha huffed once he was situated, and started scooting along towards the trunk to begin climbing higher. Gilder leaned against the trunk, meanwhile, still breathing heavily. 

Galina was already in a tree as well, which surprised him; she didn't seem a particularly agile woman, but she'd nevertheless perched herself on a relatively low, thick extension and was regarding Gilder more gargoyle-esque than ever. "Guess I better step it up," he muttered to himself, swiping the bags from the ground and passing them up to Sacha. It was a grueling workout to get all three hundred odd pounds of himself off the ground, and he could swear he heard the tree he chose creak a little, but as he moved experimentally higher, his footholds held. Gilder didn't push it, though, only ascending far enough to obscure himself from immediate sight on the ground. The air out here was thin and frozen, but he sucked it in gratefully, waiting. 

After a few moments of perfect stillness it became quite apparent that the silence of the woods was far more unnerving than the ordeal on the train. Occasionally there was a small snap in the near distance and Gilder felt his chest seize in a thoroughly disproportionate response to such a harmless disturbance. They waited exactly ten minutes. Gilder counted the seconds out himself, trying to time his breaths along with every seventh count. It surprised him that his head felt substantially better in the fresh air after a good run, even if he was still a little tight and breathless from the adrenaline rush. As he breathed, the crispness of it began to cover him with calm, and at the ten-minute mark he motioned to Sacha, whom he could just barely see staring down at him from at least a yard above. The smaller assassin rustled down and lowered their bags silently into a small snowbank, following them with the barest of thumps as his boots met the ground. Galina descended next, reappearing from between two thick clumps of foliage and shimmying down her trunk. Gilder went last, as gracefully as possible, though he still ended up on his ass. After he righted himself the three of them converged in the middle of a tiny clearing, Sacha passing Gilder’s travel sack over to him wordlessly. 

“All right, where the hell are we,” the larger man asked under his breath, crouching down. The others followed suit, Galina drawing out her map for the third time that day. She spread it out fully on the frozen dirt, tapping a small, unobtrusive-looking town. “I boarded here, and rode for about forty minutes, total.” 

Sacha chewed his bottom lip for a moment, something Gilder had observed was a habit specifically linked to when he was doing calculations. “We should have stopped here,” he decided firmly after a moment, striking the map with a commanding fingertip somewhere on the length of a thin, isolated line. “Nearest inhabited town would then be…” He broke off and grimaced. 

“Nearly two days’ travel West,” Galina confirmed, looking no more pleased at the prospect. Gilder stared. “You’re kidding.” 

“This is a large country, Mr. Ward,” she informed him passively. He waved a testy hand, correcting her: “It’s just Gilder, actually.”  _ Ward _ was the surname everyone without traceable parentage in Ivoire received, and he preferred to distance himself from it for reasons of self-preservation. Sitting back on his haunches, he crossed his arms and sighed. “So we’ll be hiking our asses off for two whole days?” 

“We have no other options,” replied Sacha thinly, fingering the handle of one of his daggers in obvious irritation, “unless you prefer to take your chances waiting to jump the next train.”  

“Got it, got it.” 

Galina began to roll up her map again, businesslike. “We should move as soon as possible. They may have waited to send men after us until the search of the train was completed.” 

The group stood and straightened wearily, each of them wondering in private whether it wouldn’t be more preferable simply to be captured after all. 

\---

It took nearly an hour to set their direction. After zigzagging briefly through the forest to lose any potential pursuers, they sent Sacha back up one of the trees to take their heading from the sun with his pocketwatch. Even after that, the group’s movement was still slow; the forest was confusing, and they had to check every half an hour to be certain they were still on the right trajectory. They had escaped the train in the late morning, but by the time the timberland thinned out, evening had nearly arrived. There was no question of stopping until twilight settled. At some point Sacha traded Gilder his travel sack for the rifle, which may not have been an entirely fair exchange, but the larger man didn’t mind the extra weight. For the most part he felt brisk, as if the cold of the air had managed to drive the near constant headache he’d nursed for weeks back into a small, softly pounding spot at the rear of his skull. He couldn’t stop watching Galina, however; the group made minimal conversation as it was, but she barely said a word, and continued her unnerving habit of staring them down to the point where Gilder deliberately faked fatigue just so that he could feasibly keep her in front of him. 

However much time passed until they finally decided to come to a rest the larger assassin could not be sure, but they had to scramble to build a fire before the light vanished completely. They had settled at the edge of a small island of foliage, which thankfully offered some measure of wind protection. Gilder collected some kindling and then left the actual construction of the fire to his counterparts; they seemed to be having a silent competition to see who was more competent at tending a flame. When it came right down to the wire Galina won, since her surplus of body mass managed to block Sacha out of the workspace completely, but after he very nearly caught her cloak on fire in an attempt to “assist,” she surrendered command of the campfire. The informant retreated to where Gilder was skinning their supper on a nearby rock and settled to watch him instead, which he was not exactly pleased about. 

“We’ll need to arrange the watch,” he ventured after a few moments of severely uncomfortable silence. He wondered if this was some sort of information-gathering tactic, to make people so uncomfortable they ended up divulging things they would rather have otherwise kept private. If so, he wasn’t falling for it; banal conversation was the foremost strategy. 

“Yes,” she replied, “I will take the first shift if you wish.” Then, “Forgive my intrusion, but your accent is not native.” 

There it was, then; her real angle of questioning. While he wasn’t sure what she was after, he’d do his best not to give it to her. “That’s true,” Gilder replied evenly. 

“Your colleague, though, he is local.” 

“Also true.” Gilder concentrated on tugging the skin over the head of their unfortunately lean rabbit; Sacha had veered off to track it a few hours earlier; at least the rifle ended up being worth something. He’d seen several, he said when he caught back up with them, but only managed to snag one; hunting the others would have taken too much valuable travel time. While Sacha handled dinner, Gilder and Galina had gathered a pile of pine branches to serve as bedding for the night, which she had dragged over near the fire pit before they built it. They seemed quite well-situated for the night, but this line of questioning had Gilder somewhat on edge again. He waited for a few moments, and sure enough, Galina proceeded just after the pause again became uncomfortable. “I must admit this arrangement is therefore confusing. Have you known each other long? Of the two of you, the one who appears most native-” 

“Sacha is a child of the north,” Gilder interjected, fumbling somewhat over their term for  _ native-born _ , “and my birthplace is foreign. Why is this important?” 

“It is simply-” Galina paused and, oddly, lowered her voice, glancing over to the fire. “The mutation,” she murmured, and gestured briefly to her own eyes to indicate Sacha’s discolored ones. “The stature, the  _ skin _ . He must be  _ tsepochkiovitch _ .” 

Gilder stared at her blankly. “I’ve never heard the term...  Do you know another word for-?” 

“ _ Son of chains _ ,” Sacha called out from beside the fire in English, then switched back to the mother tongue, addressing them over his shoulder. “It's the title for a servant of denture. There was a war before any of us were alive, with a country that doesn't exist anymore, but the children's children of that place are still working off the blood debt of their ancestors." He shrugged. "Sacha's ancestor killed someone named  _ Edorovka. _ So I belonged to that house for a while, to make up for the life."

Gilder blinked in shock and set down their dinner, now cleanly skinned. He'd known Sacha for nine years, but none of this. "You were a slave?" 

"No, I wasn't. It was a fair exchange- But you wouldn't understand, you're too Southern." He beckoned Gilder over to the fire. "Come spit the rabbit, anyway, if you're finished. And you," he jabbed a finger in Galina's direction. "What concerns you about my lineage, exactly? If you already knew, what does it matter?" 

The woman shrugged her thick shoulders. "Your voices seemed to me to be switched. I have been wondering about it all day." 

"Yeh-huh," Sacha muttered, waving her off and turning back to help Gilder arrange the spit. Galina stood and began arranging their pine bedding. Gilder followed her with his eyes until he was sure she was out of direct earshot, but Sacha spoke before he could, under his breath in English. "Listen, pretend we have argument now. She try to drive rift between us, you see that? Crafty. Sacha not like this one, not at all." 

"Fuck, me neither. We'll take turns staying awake tonight no matter who's on guard," Gilder whispered, then glanced over towards their companion. She was watching out of the corner of her eye, he was almost certain. "So why the hell didn't you tell me earlier?" He demanded more loudly, as if he'd forgotten himself in irritation. 

Sacha flashed a smile, as his back was turned, then responded in more hushed and urgent tones. "As far as Sacha see it make no difference! Still born here, still call this mother country!"

"Well that makes perfectly good fucking sense to me!" Gilder snapped. "I don't give a wet shit where you're from, to be honest. I was just curious why everyone kept giving you funny looks!" 

"Sacha knew Gilder not care. Gilder is very good not to judge about history, and Sacha wish to be more like this sometimes!" The smaller assassin bit back with an air of strained exasperation. "Probably you should storm off now!" 

Gilder took the cue and rose very dramatically, nearly knocking over the spit. "That is a very good compliment,  _ thank you, _ " he growled thunderously, then stomped away to search their knapsacks for smaller knives to eat with. While he bent over to rummage, he chuckled helplessly, hoping that Galina would take it as shaking with frustration. Behind him he heard Sacha grumbling loudly, "That brainless idiot oaf will be the death of me!" which did not improve the situation, but eventually he regained a hold on himself. 

They ate in relative silence; the two northerners said some sort of prayer over the fire before they started, which Gilder didn't quite understand, but was too busy pretending to be angry to ask about it. He very consciously sat on the opposite side of Galina as Sacha, and when his partner ventured a trivial question or two he responded shortly, with little patience. He wasn't experienced with being annoyed with  _ Sacha  _ instead of the other way around, so it was a bit of a reach, but he felt he was pulling it off beautifully. Galina certainly did have an air of satisfaction about her when she offered to take the first watch. 

"No, I'll do it," Gilder interjected, casting a purposeful glare in Sacha's direction. "I'd rather stay awake anyway- I sleep hard." 

"Are you sure? I could do it," asked Sacha with what could only be described as a hopeful look, and Gilder had to feign turning away in disgust to hide his momentary grin. "It's fine," he insisted firmly. Sacha shrunk visibly, and Galina didn't smile so much as narrow her eyes in triumph. 

They spread one of the stolen sheets over their pine needle mattress and lay down while Gilder watched, seated on a cold rock on the opposite side of the fire. Galina put her back to the campsite, facing the trees, and Sacha nestled into his coat, pressing his face into the fur collar. Gilder thought briefly of Mouse, and turned away from them with a grimace. 

They'd been in deeper shit than this before. Hell, they had killed plenty of higher people; their current target, Lebezyatnikov, was only some rebel dreamer. The way Gilder understood politics here, family had everything to do with who you answered to; the oldest mother ran each household, and each household was loyal to the "mother of the province," who belonged to a ruling council. What their rebel woman wanted to do was knock down all the queen-pins, do away with all the rigid traditions and restrictions of the country. Plenty of people argued that such things were what  _ made  _ the country itself, but Lebezyatnikov had a large and radical following. She was preaching love, acceptance, equality, and loyalty by choice rather than by blood, which Gilder could understand; marriage between households and provinces was an important tool of negotiation here instead of a union of love, for instance. (At first Gilder had thought that cultural aspect was why Sacha seemed so numb to the idea of romance, but by now it seemed clearly to be a personal thing). The only real problem with her demonstrations was the hypocrisy of her followers, based on what the  _ Crime and Punishment  _ file said. Things like holding up trains for the resistance effort and kidnapping children to "rescue" them seemed less like efforts towards equality and somewhat more like terrorism. 

 

Although none of that was Gilder's business, so long as he got paid. He'd killed for less noble causes when he was short on pocket money, so he couldn't brag on his own moral compass. Gilder and Sacha operated on a strict policy of no children; everyone else was fair game. 

The only problem now was how bad their odds looked when it came to actually finding this woman. Gilder didn't trust Galina farther than he could throw her, and she looked pretty fucking heavy. Her directions were the only lead they had, though, so there wasn't really any other choice than to stick with her until she handed them over. 

His shift passed quietly; something large and horned actually wandered into the circle of firelight, and Gilder started to stand, but it spooked before his ass even completely left the rock. Aside from that everything was eerily still. He could hear water running in the distance; they’d tried to find the source while they collected firewood, but by then it was too dark to chance things. Gilder went through and sharpened every single knife he could get his hands on to stay awake before Sacha finally rose from the bedding, silent and cautious. He crept over to his partner, the firelight reflecting oddly off of his bruised face, swiping Gilder's flask from the ground as he did so. They had filled it with snow and melted it by the fire before sticking it in a bank of ice to cool; Gilder had forgotten about it, however, and hoped it hadn't frozen back over again. 

Sacha reached his seat and shook it at him pointedly, which answered his question. Gilder took the first drink. It tasted slightly gritty, but overall sweet. He passed it back to Sacha, who perched on the rock next to him and sipped at it tentatively for a few minutes in silence. He leaned up against Gilder's arm while he did it, and Gilder was careful to be very still.

"Did you sleep?" He asked eventually, under his breath. 

"Don't know," Sacha answered just as quietly, and passed him the water again. "Probably not. You had better go and rest." 

"All right." One more swig and Gilder stood. "There's these bigass horned horses or something out here," he said, unsure of why he felt this was important, perhaps just wanting to prolong the moment. 

"Snow-deer," replied Sacha, nodding. "Too dark to hunt, though, and we would have to waste it. Go to sleep. I will watch for them." 

“I feel safer already.” Smiling fleetingly, he handed the flask back, then circled the fire to where Galina’s prone form occupied most of their makeshift mattress. Grudgingly, Gilder lay down, facing the fire; while she did take up a solid portion of the cushion, he had to admit Galina did provide a decent heat source to make up for it. Since Sacha was officially on watch he decided it wouldn't be too far-fetched of an idea to try sleeping; surely his partner would wake him when it was necessary. He reached quietly for the tiny bottles in his coat pocket on reflex- a little tipple would certainly help him drift off- but his fingers found the pocket empty. He almost sat up to ask about them, but remembered that he was technically supposed to be in the middle of an argument- And besides, he needed to be alert when he rose again. He was halfway submerged in disgruntled sleep when it occured to him that he hadn't thought about Linneus once that day, and by then he was too far gone to dwell on it. 

 

As Gilder had predicted, Sacha woke him hours later, although not in the expected manner. His raw shriek had Gilder bolt upright in about two seconds and his knife out in three, but it was still too late; Galina had him in a chokehold that nearly encompassed his small form, and though she gripped her sword, it was quite clear that from this position she could snap his neck with little more than a casual gesture. She had tried to cover his mouth, but there was blood dripping from the fingers of her left hand to show how well that strategy had served her. 

“Let him go,” said Gilder automatically, as little chance as that request obviously had of being fruitful. “What the fuck’re you-” He switched to the mother tongue. “What are you doing? Whatever you want-” 

“I only want to understand how you could  _ do  _ this.” Speaking to Sacha, she tightened her arm around his neck, the same arm that held her sword. He started to struggle for breath. “How could you think to oppose her? She is fighting for  _ you _ , for everyone who has been wronged by our mother council and their  _ traditions _ .” Galina drew her arm back and replaced it with her steel, her bloodied palm against Sacha’s forehead to keep it still. “They started a war that slaughtered your people! They drove you from your homelands! I thought only to kill you both at first, but now I must know.  _ Tell me. _ ” She leaned down near his face. Sacha wheezed for breath momentarily, and Gilder felt as if he were leaving his own body and watching the moment from far away. 

Galina’s undoing was her hair; when she bent to question Sacha, her braid draped itself over her arms. The assassin shot a hand out and grabbed it. He yanked heavily to the side, forcing them both to tilt, and scraped out of the knife-hold under her elbow. At that point Gilder was already more than halfway toward them, trampling straight through the campfire instead of bothering to veer around it so that his boots trailed smoke as he ran. He slammed into Galina with all the force that his considerable size could muster, and they went down powerfully with her sword arm pinned between their chests. He wrestled her in the dark snow for a moment, wrenching her weapon away. She punched him in the stomach, so Gilder butted her in the forehead, then followed up with about six or seven right hooks, which she readily returned. Trying to force him off of her, Galina battered him to the left, but ended up rolling them over. Her elbow slammed into Gilder’s chest and knocked the wind from him. The opportunity was hers, and she tried to take it, rearing up and clamping both thick hands around his neck. 

His vision started to cloud, but it seemed a few sudden seconds later she was jerked to the right again, landing hard in the snow beside him. Sacha had a hold on her braid again, and her flat, wickedly sharp sword in his other hand. Gilder tried to cough out his name, not sure what he wanted to convey, but if he made any noise at all it was ignored. Still holding the braid like a leash, Sacha swung the blade directly at Galina’s face. She tried to roll, but only ended up catching it to the side of her head instead; blood gushed instantly down her neck, soaking her collar. She made a few strangled noises and moved for him weakly, but Sacha braced his foot on her chest and pulled the weapon free only to swing it again. This time it connected neatly with her throat. 

“Fuck,” Gilder finally managed to choke out, pushing himself laboriously into a more upright position. He still had to heave and gasp for air. 

Sacha yanked the blade free again and leaned over the woman’s twitching body, staring intently at her face. After a few moments the motion left her, and the corpse was still. 

Gilder finally managed to suck in a full breath. “S-something wrong?” 

“...No. She is dead,” Sacha said, his voice sounding raw and painful. “And you are alive.” He shook his head as if recovering from a trance. Then he stepped slowly over her body and offered a hand to help Gilder up. 

“Thanks.” Gilder took the offered assistance, but only went up on his knees; anything else seemed like pushing his luck. Though the fire was strewn apart and mostly dead from his trampling, he could still see the bruises from yesterday dark on Sacha’s small white face. “How was that for a display of loyalty,” he huffed, glancing at the body next to them. 

“Unnecessary,” Sacha muttered, and wiped some blood off of Gilder’s cheek with his thumb. “Is this yours?” 

“Nah. It’s from her hand. You bit her good.” 

Sacha looked at the smear on his finger distastefully, then took the flask of water from his coat pocket. He rinsed his mouth out and spat. “I would never have said anything,” he said suddenly, after he’d screwed the cap back on. “I didn’t owe her any answers.”

“I know.” 

“I owe you, though.” 

“Not tonight.” Gilder decided it was safe to stand, steadying himself on Sacha’s shoulder.

“Okay.” 

They covered her body with the sheet, because she had fought respectfully and because neither felt like touching her to close her eyes. Sacha built the fire back up, not to anything resembling its former glory, but to something that at least wouldn’t burn out before dawn. Then he sat with Gilder on the nest of pine branches, passed the water back and forth with him until it was gone. “We probably should have boiled this,” he mused thoughtfully, swishing the dregs of it around in the bottom of the flask.

“Probably,” Gilder agreed as he took it and drained the last few drops. 

“Fuck,” Sacha said tonelessly. 

A few moments later there was a gentle movement off in the distant reaches of the firelight, behind the shrouded corpse. Both of them saw it, but as soon as they made to stand, the fuzzy shape spooked violently and disappeared.   
“I think that mighta been another snow-deer,” whispered Gilder after a moment. 

“Or something else that smelled the blood,” replied Sacha, whose heartbeat Gilder could practically hear. 

“Don’t think I’m gonna sleep tonight,” he confessed, starting to pack his flask with more snow. 

“Me neither,” Sacha muttered, and fed the fire a few more twigs. 

They were both lying. This sort of thing happened to them too often for it to keep them awake. If anything, it made them more exhausted than a lifetime of quiet days ever could. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God damn. What a wild ride. I have one more journal and half of chapter five, which I might finish just for kicks if anybody asks me to, so hit up the comments if you want.

**Author's Note:**

> I still can't believe I've spent so much time on this story!!! Anyone who reads it at ALL, please tell me what you think- Augh, it's been such a long haul. THANK YOU for reading, too!!! It means so much to me! 
> 
> Technical notes: The Teahouse's country is spelled "Ivoire" on purpose (the authors have been inconsistent about whether or not the second 'i' should be added, so personally I decided to stick with the actual French word). Original characters are mine and employed strictly for the purpose of fleshing out this story.


End file.
